(7 months ago)
Commons ChamberI commend my hon. Friend and Sir James Dyson for that initiative. It would be wonderful to see many more such initiatives across the whole country. My colleagues and I would be delighted to work with any philanthropists seeking to do something similar.
On National Numeracy Day, will my hon. Friend take the opportunity to praise the work of universities, such as the University of Birmingham, Imperial College London and Loughborough University, that go out of their way to attract women on to engineering courses?
We are enormously blessed in this country with the quality of our universities, so many of which, together with the firms that sponsor undergraduate and postgraduate research, are making magnificent efforts in the important area of diversity in STEM.
(2 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am proud of the endeavours of my colleagues and those in local enterprise partnerships up and down the UK in disbursing the £38 million internationalisation fund to support businesses as we go through some of the changes that result from leaving the European Union and seek opportunities elsewhere in the world. I will of course undertake to look at any way we can make it simpler for small businesses, in particular, to engage with the Department.