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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills (Matthew Hancock)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley, and to respond to the debate. It is great to see so many Members here from across the House. There has been, I fear, an outbreak of consensus about the need to tackle the problem, and I am very much part of that. There is passion on both sides. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) on securing the debate. I know that we often have debates in this Chamber and on the Floor of the House, but raising awareness and constantly making the arguments that hon. Members have made today is an important part of the solution. I hope that through this debate we are helping to solve Britain’s problem of a shortage of engineers.
In the 10 minutes that I have, I will provide some context and go through some of the things that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is doing to rise to the challenge and answer the shortfall that many Members have eloquently described. Many estimates have been made of the shortage of engineers in the country, and although it is impossible to put a precise figure on that shortage, it is clear that we need more engineers. We need those who are qualified at university level, both undergraduate and postgraduate, and those who are qualified through apprenticeships at technician level.
Over the past few years, steps have been made in the right direction. The number of engineering and manufacturing apprenticeships has risen to 60,000 starts in the past year, up from 25,000 starts a decade earlier. This year, the number of applications to university to study engineering is 127,000, which is up 8% on last year alone. The proportion of those applying to university to study computing, which is an important element of engineering, has risen even more sharply. At school, participation at GCSE in maths, physics and the sciences, which are an essential bedrock of engineering, has been rising sharply. The Department for Education, as well as BIS, is playing a big role in ensuring that the building blocks, which for too long have been deteriorating, are in place.
Let me set out the action that we are taking in four areas. First, we are making the whole skills system more focused on the needs of employers. The employer ownership of skills is important to ensure that we provide and support the skills that employers need.
Mark Menzies
I urge the Minister to consider working closely with schools, colleges and universities in areas where enterprise zones are developing and to focus on apprenticeships, particularly in engineering, in those areas.
Matthew Hancock
That is an important point, and I will look at what more we can do in enterprise zones to add a skills element. The employer ownership strategy is about ensuring that we provide the skills that employers need. We have a conundrum in this country. Although youth unemployment is falling, it is still slightly less than 1 million, which is too high, but, at the same time, we have skills shortages. That tells me that the skills and education system has not worked to match up the supply and demand for skills.
Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)
Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to McLaren in my constituency, which helps to sponsor an annual technology and engineering prize? Indeed, the Prime Minister came the other year to give out the prize to the winning team. Not only glamorous technology companies such as McLaren, but every technology and engineering company should hold open days and become involved in such competitions, to engage young people and, indeed, their teachers to ensure that they are aware of the career options that are on offer and the sort of subjects that need to be studied to pursue those careers.
Matthew Hancock
Absolutely. I pay tribute to what McLaren, and many other companies, are doing. That brings me on to my second point, which is about careers advice. The Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Network, or STEMNET, is a network of 25,000 STEM ambassadors who go into schools. Where they go into schools and inspire the pupils, they can be a huge driver, by explaining the exciting things that are going on in modern engineering, and not only to boys but girls. After all, only 7% of those in engineering are female, and so the easiest way to increase the number of engineers is to have more of a balance, because if we are only recruiting—broadly speaking—from half the population, we are clearly missing a very important trick.
Competitions in skills are very important, too. The annual skills show, which was in Birmingham in 2012, is an extravaganza of brilliant exhibitions of high-level skills by highly trained people. There is also an element of competition to show the very best of British skills, as it leads on to the world skills competition. It is absolutely brilliant, and I encourage everybody to go and see it for themselves. Similarly, the Big Bang fair is a competition to drive the excitement of this agenda about engineering through schools.
In addition, the new duty on schools to provide independent and impartial advice and guidance to pupils from the age of 12 all the way up to 18 is very important. Ofsted is studying its implementation. It was introduced only last September, and this summer we will have a report from Ofsted on how it is going. So, as I say, the second element is careers advice and getting that right, and engaging with STEMNET in particular to get inspiring people into schools to inspire pupils about engineering.
The third element is reforming the skills system, so that it is more rigorous and more responsive. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire talked about the need for more rigour in the schools system, but we also need to drive up rigour in the vocational qualifications area. We have done that by supporting and recognising only the highest quality vocational qualifications from 14 to 16 in the new accountability structures—they were set out by the Secretary of State for Education last week—but we also need to do that further up the age range.
In addition, we need to ensure that the skills system is responsive to the needs of employers, which brings us back to employer ownership of skills. In the field of apprenticeships, the Richard review very much drove down that track, and I am looking forward to responding to it with enthusiasm, because the vision set out by Doug Richard was a powerful one that argued for apprenticeships to be much closer to what employers need and for employers to be able to start up skills academies and apprenticeship qualifications. Autotech has started a skills academy. However, more broadly—not just in that single example—we need to have more apprenticeships with the qualifications, as well as the content, designed by employers themselves.
I encourage employers to respond to the Richard review and to engage with it, as we try to improve those qualifications. That is already happening in two areas. First, the Royal Academy of Engineering is introducing four new engineering qualifications for students aged 16, which I think will be very important. We hope that they will be high-quality. Secondly, we are introducing the technical baccalaureate at 18, which is an idea that has cross-party support.
Finally, I urge all Members to get involved in apprenticeship week. It starts on 11 March, and it will be a big, national celebration of what apprenticeships have achieved during their 600-year history and what they can achieve if we can reform them to make them better. I end by reiterating that the passion shown by Members of all parties today, and my passion, is a passion to ensure that we solve this problem, which has bedevilled our country for far too long.