Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Seabeck Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said to that Select Committee, we will shortly publish new guidance on careers education. As we have set out many times, a far more important—if not the most important—thing for young people’s inspiration and motivation is people who themselves are successful in their careers, so that is what our careers advice policy focuses on.

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his replies to these questions, but how does he propose to deal with the real dearth of engineering apprenticeships—female ones—when frankly there will not be enough role models to go around? We need good careers advice in classrooms, but it needs to be targeted so that we get young women, especially, into engineering and STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—subjects.

[Matthew Hancock]

Of course role models can be of either gender, and I am sure that many men can think of women who would be role models for themselves. Under this Government, the number and proportion of applications for apprenticeships in engineering are up, and the number of applications to study engineering at university is up. There is much more to do, but we are moving in the right direction.