Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kemi Badenoch and Jack Lopresti

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

6. Whether her Department is taking steps to help increase trade with Ukrainian businesses.

[The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kemi Badenoch)]

Supporting Ukraine is a Government priority. On Monday, I signed the UK-Ukraine digital trade agreement, Ukraine’s first ever digital trade deal, guaranteeing access to the UK’s financial services sector, which is crucial for their reconstruction efforts.

[Jack Lopresti]

My right hon. Friend’s Department has this week published a guide to doing business in Ukraine. Can she outline what this industry guidance sets out and how businesses can get further information if they need it?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting the guide to doing business in Ukraine that my Department published. It provides an overview of the Ukrainian market, including setting out Ukraine’s reconstruction needs and the expected financing and procurement routes for reconstruction projects. It is accompanied by information on the business environment, trading agreements between our countries and logistical guidance. The information is intended to help businesses considering working in and with Ukraine to understand how their market works and encourage industry to increase trade with Ukraine.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kemi Badenoch and Jack Lopresti

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

What steps she is taking to encourage girls and young women to take up STEM subjects.

[The Minister for Equalities (Kemi Badenoch)]

We continue to fund numerous programmes to increase girls’ and young women’s take-up of science, technology, engineering and maths subjects. The number of girls’ STEM A-level entries has increased year on year, despite an overall reduction in cohort size. Since 2010, there has been a 31% increase in girls’ entries to STEM A-levels in England and a 34% increase in women accepted on to full-time STEM undergraduate courses in the UK.

[Kemi Badenoch]

Our advanced maths support programme, worth £8 million per year, aims to increase the number of girls studying level 3 maths, which includes core maths. Out of more than 17,000 students participating in the programme’s events last year, 55% of attendees were female. We will be using research such as our behavioural insight studies to inform future work on how to get more girls studying maths after GCSE.

[Jack Lopresti]

My constituency is a world-renowned centre of aerospace and defence expertise, so how can the Government help to encourage more women to take up these subjects and apprenticeships in particular so that we can equip the country and them with the skills we need for the future?

[Kemi Badenoch]

Along with the significant measures that I have mentioned on increasing the take-up of STEM subjects among girls and women, we are also raising awareness of STEM careers through programmes such as STEM ambassadors, 45% of whom are women. The Department for Education is also taking steps to engage with the sector through apprenticeships. On aerospace specifically, we are supporting industry’s efforts to increase diversity in the sector through the women in aviation and aerospace charter, recognising that a more diverse sector is good for business, customers and workplace culture.