Vote 100 and International Women’s Day

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

It is huge honour to be called to speak as the first woman Member of Parliament for Chelmsford on this, the International Women’s Day in the 100th year since women won the vote. Yesterday I became a member of the Women and Equalities Committee and attended my first meeting. There are a number of mothers on that Committee, and we were looking at the challenges faced by the parents of a newborn baby. We came up with a long list of recommendations, every one of which is to help fathers, because it is only by working together that we will achieve equality. I want to thank the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) and, especially, my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) for their contributions in this debate.

I am also a member of the Science and Technology Committee. As this is also the Year of Engineering, I want to focus my words on issues that affect women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. EngineeringUK estimates that the demand for graduate engineers outstripped supply by 20,000 people last year. We aspire to be a world-leading, 21st-century, innovative economy, but to achieve that we will need to double the number of engineering students at our universities. We will succeed only if we inspire the next generation of young women in our schools to take up the opportunities of science and tech.

Before coming to the House today, I attended an assembly at Barnes Farm Junior School in Chelmsford. I met Ada Barnes, who is in year 3. Ada told me that she is named after Ada Lovelace, who was the pioneer of computing. She invented the first algorithm that was run on a computer. She was the world’s first computer programmer and the mother of the digital revolution. We all know about Charles Babbage. He invented the machine, but she discovered what the machine could do. Ada Barnes asked me which woman in history had inspired me, so who do I choose? Do I choose my own daughter’s namesake, Elizabeth, our great Queen today? Do I choose Elizabeth I, who stood at the dockside at Tilbury as the Spanish armada was approaching and explained that she had

“the body of a weak, feeble woman; but…the heart and stomach of a king”?

She defended our country. Do I choose my namesake, Queen Victoria, who not only ran the huge British empire, but was mother to nine children? Or, at a time when I said I want to focus on women in science, do I focus on Margaret Thatcher, not only our first woman Prime Minister, but a scientist, too?

In areas of science we are doing really well, as 50% of those studying to become doctors at our medical schools are women.

[Maria Caulfield]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that Margaret Thatcher was also the scientist behind the Mr Whippy ice cream?

[Vicky Ford]

Absolutely, which goes to show how interesting science is. Women in science make great leaders, and women doctors have already broken though the glass ceiling in so many ways. Last year, the chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges brought together the presidents of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons, of Physicians, of Pathologists, of Radiologists, of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, of General Practitioners and of Paediatrics and Child Health. They were joined by the outgoing president of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists for a photo call. Every one of the nine people present was a woman. Our chief medical officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, is a phenomenal woman, leading the world with her campaigns on antimicrobial resistance and now focusing on air quality. Those who are interested in technology, tech ethics and artificial intelligence should go and meet our Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, as she is inspirational. She has degree in history and a masters in informational science.

However, there are other areas of science in which we are not doing at all well. Fewer than one in 10 of the engineers in this country are women, and we have the lowest level of female engineering professionals anywhere in Europe. Not only are we behind Germany and France, but we are way behind countries such as Latvia, Bulgaria and Cyprus. We must do better. Increasing the number of pupils taking maths at A-level is key. In November, the Government announced that schools would get an additional £600 for every additional pupil taking A-level maths. That has the potential to be transformational, so I thank Ministers for that. I hope that it will dramatically increase the number of pupils studying maths, but it will not necessarily solve the problem. That is because already nearly four out of 10 of the people doing maths A-level are girls, so that is not where the issue lies. The problem is in physics.

To become an engineer, one needs to do not only maths but physics. Girls are really good at physics. At GCSE, the classes are 50:50; some 64,000 girls passed physics GCSE last year, with nearly half of them receiving a top grade—an A or A*.That is brilliant, but at A-level the level drops from 50:50 to girls making up just one in five students. That ratio has not changed in 20 years, so we must encourage young women to do more in physics.

I need to declare an interest: I did physics A-level and I did win a prize. I won a silver medal in the physics Olympiad. I still have the book I was awarded, and inside the front cover is an inscription that is addressed to “Mr Victoria” and congratulates “him” on “his achievement”. I gave up physics—let us just say that I did not think that this was a career that valued me. That is ancient history, and a generation later much has changed, but we do need to encourage girls and to give them the evidence of why that career wants them.

I told the primary school assembly at Barnes Farm today three reasons why the girls might wish to consider a career in engineering. The first was that they are wanted. One third of companies say that they cannot find the STEM skills they need, so if girls do science and technology, they will find jobs. The second was that they will make money, because those jobs will be well paid. The evidence shows us that girls who have studied maths and one other science at A-level earn, on average, 30% more than their peers—an extra 30p for every pound. The third was that they will be happy. A recent study of more than 300 women engineers found that more than 80% of them said they were happy or very happy with their career choice. How many people can say that?

Taking a degree in engineering is a passport to work all across the world. Engineering gave us flight and helped to break through the frontier of space. Just last month, I was at CERN in Switzerland, where our engineers are uncovering the secrets of the universe. Taking up a career in engineering does not mean giving up all the glitz and the glamour. Just 10 days ago, at the catwalks in Milan, they had got rid of the models and instead the handbags were flown down the catwalks and paraded by a squadron of drones.

Today is International Women’s Day. It is a century since women got the vote. It is also the Year of Engineering. May I ask that we encourage all the women and men in this House to use that opportunity to go out and inspire the young women in our schools and classrooms to consider a career in engineering?