Apprenticeships: Women

Baroness Burt of Solihull Excerpts

Thursday 14th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

Thanks partly to work done in this House by a series of committees, we are moving in that direction. Of course, people stay at school for longer now, so you would not necessarily get apprenticeships that lasted for five years. However, often you need an apprenticeship of more than one year to pick up all the skills that you need. In the end, you need a proper qualification that allows you to take your portfolio elsewhere. That helps flexibility in our economy, which obviously does a lot better than many other economies because of that very strength.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, from the Minister’s response, it seems that the target of 3 million is quite a way off yet. However, is that missing the point somewhat? Should we not be concentrating on high-quality apprenticeships across the board? Otherwise we will run into the scenario of “Never mind the quality, feel the width”. On female apprenticeships in non-traditional occupations, what are the Government doing to encourage role models to inspire girls and women to bring their talents into these non-traditional areas?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

As I have said, our new campaign will focus on role models, including female degree-level apprenticeships in engineering. We have Tomorrow’s Engineers Week, which responded to the Perkins review of engineering skills. The Your Life campaign, which I think the noble Baroness is well aware of, helps to ensure that the UK encourages women to move into maths and science in schools in a much more fundamental way. There is also the STEM Ambassadors programme, which I hope many noble Lords can help with. Some of us were not lucky enough to study science in school. We have to move forward and change the dynamics in our schools.