Oral Answers to Questions

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we ought to be doing better on this, and that was one of the tasks that we set Sir Tim Wilson, who has just produced his excellent report. We are doubling the number of enterprise societies to which students have access and we want every university and college in the country to have an enterprise society that helps students know how to do what my hon. Friend did.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

While visiting an engineering company in Luton this week, I was told yet again that companies are finding it hard to recruit British engineering graduates and are having to take graduates from overseas. Are the universities simply not producing enough engineering graduates, or are graduates going to other jobs and working overseas?

[Mr Willetts]

We are seeing an increase in the number of engineering places in universities, which is very important because it is just what the British economy needs as it rebalances. There is also a challenge on where engineering graduates go, and we of course hope that more of them will work in industry. As we see manufacturing in Britain strengthening, as it is under the coalition’s policies, I am sure that more recruits will go into industry.