Royal Navy Submarine Force

Baroness Wolf of Dulwich Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, is now not in his place. I keep saying that the US and the UK are fundamental allies in the protection of global security in every part of the world. To answer my noble friend’s important question, I have no doubt that the US, the UK and Australia will stand together in the AUKUS programme. One way in which we will achieve that is by looking forward to the important steps that the US is taking to work with us. I think it was the Colby review there that looked into the AUKUS programme and found it was something that the US could take forward. As I have said, let us wait until later in the week, but the US-UK alliance is as strong as it ever has been and will continue to be so.

[Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to and acknowledged the shortage of technicians. He also said that we need to raise the status of vocational education. I really do not think that is the problem. We have at least five people chasing every apprenticeship opening in this country. We have excess demand for engineering courses at universities, because they are not funded at a level which means that the number of places can be expanded. Could the Minister say whether his ministry is talking directly to the relevant other departments about how to increase capacity for technician training?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

It would be interesting to have a conversation outside the Chamber with the noble Baroness about her challenge to me. Certainly, we are talking to other departments about what more we can do to encourage technical education and I would like to discuss this with the noble Baroness. When I go to MoD establishment after MoD establishment, there are vacancies and they cannot recruit people into those bases to do some of the work they need to do. There is a particular problem and I would be very keen to talk to the noble Baroness about what we might do about it.