The science and technology committee shouldn't be filled with scientists, female or not

The row about the science and technology select committee's lack of diversity reveals that we are still confused about what such groups are for

On Saturday, hundreds of Labour women - politicians, stakeholders and activists - from across the country met in Brighton, in advance of Labour party conference, for the annual Labour party women's conference. This year was special, because for the first time it had a formal voice in Labour's policy-making processes. But as we debated issues ranging from housing and the NHS to the economy and fair pay, I kept thinking about the irony of the recent announcement by the parliamentary select committee on science and technology that the committee will not have any female MPs sitting on it this year.

As someone who studies the impact of science and technology on society, it was clear to me that whatever issues motivated us to get involved in politics, they were going to change dramatically over the next five to ten years thanks to science and technology. Digital technologies are already making it harder to fund public services, as they enable companies to benefit from "stateless profits", depriving the public purse of much needed tax receipts. It will be impossible to come up with a realistic business tax policy for the 21st century without engaging with this. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the advent of robots is going to rapidly transform industry, healthcare and the job market in ways we have never seen before; we need to think deeply about what this means for the skills and education we should offer future generations. And the way highly paid jobs in the tech industry are usually men's jobs means that the gender pay gap is likely to widen as these industries grow in the future. In short, in the 21st century, science and technology is one of the most powerful drivers of change and shaper of our society. And we cannot govern the country if we don't understand how to govern these technologies.