Women: Training and Upskilling

Baroness Wall of New Barnet Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

I am delighted to answer that question. We are starting in schools; we have an all-age careers service, which will come into schools to talk to girls much earlier than we have done in the past, to give them much more idea of what is available. We have more than 200,000 different apprenticeships available now, including in nuclear decommissioning and all sorts of wondrous things that girls can learn. So, yes, it is an excellent idea.

[Baroness Wall of New Barnet]

Does the noble Baroness acknowledge, in the way she responded to my noble friend, the value placed on the sector skills councils in producing these 25,000 women going through the course? What she said sounds like good news, but in the context of the remarks by the noble Baroness on the Liberal Democrat Benches, it is also important to realise that many of the sector skills councils will no longer be involved. There are four sector skills councils left. All are really good and will ensure that engineering has a high profile for women, including Semta, Cogent and others. Any effort that the Minister can make on behalf of the whole process will be really welcome.

[Baroness Wilcox]

I agree completely with what the noble Baroness has said, and I will continue to make sure that we watch what is going on. I visited a building site recently where women who had been long-term unemployed were training as electricians. I was very taken with a mother and daughter who decided to make a team, because they realised that most electricians were male and put all the plugs in the wrong places. They were going to set up their own business, because they think it would be rather good to have a woman electrician coming to a woman’s flat or house at night, and making sure that the hairdryer is going to be plugged in at the right place.