Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Burden Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

My hon. Friend is right to say that in an environment where there is an acute shortage of professional engineers and craftsmen, there is a tendency to poach skills. We see that happening in other sectors, like the motor car industry, oil and gas and so on. The answer is to produce more engineers, and he will be aware that in his constituency, or certainly in the city of Plymouth, we have the 600-place university technology college, which is growing with support from the Government. That is a very positive step forward, and I am sure he will be pleased with it.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that today’s good news from the automotive sector should encourage more people to become engineers, but that there is still a real issue to address to ensure that the automotive supply chain gets the engineers it needs and that young people are encouraged to go into it? Does that not involve doing more to ensure that training meets the needs of the supply chain and that small businesses in that sector get the investment they need, which requires a different approach from finance houses?

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the key challenge now faced by the car industry, which is a great success story, is to progress the success of OEMs—original equipment manufacturers—which are expanding, down through their supply chains, which were hollowed out in earlier years. We are addressing that issue through the Automotive Council and the industry strategy. That is progressing well, but it does need a great deal of support for the training base and the training of engineers, which is what we are doing through our apprenticeship programme.