Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to promote literacy in digital skills within industries to help reduce the skills gap in digital manufacturing.

We are taking action across the digital skills pipeline – from reforming the computing science curriculum to establishing a National Institute for Coding. In schools, we’ve announced £67 million for the next 5 years to recruit and train an extra 2,500 maths and physics teachers and upskill 15,000 existing maths and physics teachers.

Higher Apprenticeships and Degree Apprenticeships are helping bring on the technical skills that manufacturers need, and we have seen a 35.5% increase in apprenticeship starts in the Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies sector subject area since 2010/11.

There are 48 university technical colleges (UTCs) now open, providing high quality technical education for young people age 14-19, with a further 7 in development and a government commitment to establish a UTC within reach of every city.