The founder of Lastminute.com has warned that the tech sector is in “peril” as US President Donald Trump cracks down on equality programmes.
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho argued that inclusion is central to growth and innovation, with diverse teams increasing company profits by 20%.
However, the industry is now scrapping many of its efforts to diversify its workforce amid Mr Trump’s attack on diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) schemes.
Lady Lane-Fox told the House of Lords the US has a huge influence on the UK tech sector and implored peers to “feel the peril of this moment and the urgency of this moment”.
The independent crossbench peer said: “I had never used the words DEI in my life until the last two months and yet I find myself defending the very notion of equality to journalists, to people I work with, to companions in the sector and outside it.
“I cannot understand this disconnect between good business practice and what we are now facing, which is a fundamental row back in the belief and the priorities of these substantial programmes.
“Just yesterday, I heard of Google’s edict from on high rowing back in a huge number of different projects that it works with here in the UK, charities and the civic sector, that look at diversity, equality, inclusion, AI for good.
“I am angry and I am nervous, and we have to keep fighting.”
She added: “I cannot believe that there is a single person who looks like me who has worked on the edges of the digital sector for so long who did not feel like crying as they watched the inauguration and the six men who have completely and totally committed to a president who, at the same time, has degraded the role of women so substantially.”
The six men she is referring to include Tesla’s Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai.
Her comments came as peers discussed International Women’s Day and the steps being taken to promote women’s participation and leadership in science and technology.
Lady Lane-Fox, who co-founded Lastminute.com in 1998, went on to became the UK’s Digital Champion, helping to create the Government Digital Service, the team that launched gov.uk.
Lastminute.com was founded by Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (James Manning/PA)
She told peers that she has seen a “degradation” in both culture and the numbers of women in tech during her time in the industry.
The businesswoman said: “I have to say, I am angry. I am not a person prone to rage and fury, but I am angry. I am angry, because this is an urgent and important question that I fear we are ignoring at our peril.
“I have now worked in or around the technology sector for over 30 years and I have seen no change in the relationship between the sector and women and the numbers of women, in fact I have seen a degradation, not just in culture, but also in the absolute numbers…
“Why does this matter? It matters because, as we know, software is eating the world. We know that it is not an option to digitise, it is happening.
“These are the jobs of the future, they are the jobs that will create the services of the future and the jobs that will be paid the most amount of money.
“It is about power and it is about justice and it is about fairness.
“I am so dismayed when I see the numbers and I keep going back to this disconnect between what I see happening and then I see the benefits and the bonus of employing diversity in your teams and putting it at the heart of the company’s strategy, and I just can’t understand this disconnect.”
Lady Lane-Fox highlighted the fact that just 26% of the world’s tech workforce are women, falling to 15% in leadership roles, which falls again to just 6% when it comes to leadership roles in the UK.
She said: “If you believe, as I do, that the sector is going to be eaten again by AI, by quantum, by deep tech, the numbers fall off even more considerably, so we are in a very perilous position, and it is very disappointing to see the enormous influence of the US technology sector being integrated into the culture of our own companies here.”