Dave Robertson

It is a pleasure to be here and to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) for securing the debate. We are here to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day—a day to celebrate women in STEM across the country and across the world. When I spotted this debate on the Order Paper, I was reminded of 12 July last year, when I received a Facebook message, of all things, from a former pupil— I have no idea how she found me. She had just that day passed out, getting her doctorate in astrophysics, and had placed a note in the acknowledgements section of her thesis thanking me “for being so inspiring and enthusiastic…and planting the seed by asking me the all-important question once after a class: Have you ever considered studying astrophysics at university?” That does not sound like an exact quote—I suspect there was possibly more sarcasm when I said it—but it made me reflect on the fact that we should never miss the opportunity to ask such a question of a young person. We need to go further and faster. We need women working in STEM and women teaching STEM. We also need to change the way we do this. We need to talk about adjectives, not just verbs. We need to talk about the beauty of mathematics. It is hard to describe to a non-mathematician, but it is so beautiful. We need to talk about the creativity of physics. We need to talk about how caring some of the life sciences can be. We need to talk about the adjectives, not just the verbs. We also need to make sure we have a cross-governmental response to encourage more people into STEM. It is the Department for Transport, DSIT, the Department for Work and Pensions and further afield. We need parity of esteem for vocational courses in STEM. We need access to triple sciences for more kids, not just the highest achievers. We need the measures in the Employment Rights Bill. We need the women’s tech taskforce. Here’s hoping that, soon, every day can be Ada Lovelace Day.