Peter Swallow
Main Page: Peter Swallow (Labour - Bracknell)(1 day, 18 hours ago)
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Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
As my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) and many others have so expertly touched on Ada Lovelace’s story, I thought I might—with your indulgence, Ms Furniss—touch on another champion of 19th-century science who has always inspired me: Mary Anning, a pioneering palaeontologist renowned for her significant geological discoveries on the Dorset coast. Mary’s findings heavily influence how scientists now understand prehistoric life. She discovered the first complete plesiosaur skeleton—she could say it better than I could—and the ichthyosaurus, but she was held back from the proper recognition she so badly deserved because she was working class, because she was uneducated and because she was a woman.
I have always been inspired by her story, and I know that many girls and women across the country have too, including Bracknell’s all-girls robotics team, the RealTech Bots, who were crowned world champions at the FIRST Lego League international open earlier this year. The team, made up of school pupils aged between nine and 15, beat 96 teams and 11 countries, flying the STEM flag for Bracknell and the UK, and we are all extremely proud of them.
According to BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, if we continue at our current rate, it will take women 283 years to make up an equal share of the tech workforce. Given the rapid development of AI and the fact that it is ultimately shaped by its designers, this lack of diversity should worry us all. That is why it is so important that the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology has set up a new women’s tech taskforce to, in her words—because the words of a woman here are more important than mine—
“finally smash those glass ceilings. Because Britain’s future shouldn’t just be shaped by the Tech Bros in Silicon Valley but our Tech Sisters—right here, in the UK.”
While other parties are arguing against diversity initiatives, it is important that this Government are recognising that economic growth must be underpinned by shared economic benefits to everyone.
Finally, I turn to the remarks made by the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) and others about the important intersection between Ada’s mathematical legacy and the arts that so influenced her. She often blended mathematics with art, predicting the use of computers in music and visual art, as well as other things. She wrote:
“We may say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.”
Several hon. Members rose—