Oral Answers to Questions

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)]

6. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help increase the number of women in STEM apprenticeships.

[The Minister for Higher and Further Education (Michelle Donelan)]

We are supporting more women to access traditionally male-dominated fields such as STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—and those that offer the highest wage returns. Our apprenticeship diversity champion network is championing gender representation among employers and industries where improvement is needed, and we are promoting STEM apprenticeships to girls in schools.

[Simon Fell]

Providing opportunities in STEM for women is essential, as is showing that there are already women in these roles doing the jobs that they aspire to. I would like to praise two local businesses that have worked tirelessly on this: BAE Systems in Barrow, responsible for our submarine programme, which has increased female participation in its early years programme from 19% to 32% in just five years; and Oxley Developments in Ulverston, which has a 50% female workforce. Clearly there is something going right in this cluster in south Cumbria. With that in mind, could I invite my right hon. Friend to come and visit?

[Michelle Donelan]

I would be delighted to take up the opportunity to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency and hear more about the work that his local businesses are doing to enhance the opportunities of young people.

[Mr Speaker]

I call shadow Secretary of State Anneliese Dodds.

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister for Women and Equalities has just lauded her Government’s social mobility tsar. Does the Minister for Higher and Further Education agree with that tsar that

“physics isn’t something that girls tend to fancy…There’s a lot of hard maths in there”?

If not, will she condemn those remarks and others that put girls and women off careers in STEM because of, to use the words of the Minister for Women and Equalities, the

“soft bigotry of low expectations”?

[Michelle Donelan]

Conservative Members believe in free speech and the right to have a view, but of course we want all people to aspire to go into their chosen careers, including in STEM.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

7. What steps she is taking with the Secretary of State for Education to improve classroom support for children with autism.

[The Minister for Higher and Further Education (Michelle Donelan)]

The SEND—special educational needs and disabilities—and alternative provision Green Paper aims to create a more inclusive education system to improve outcomes for children and young people with SEND. We are providing nearly £12 million to help the schools and further education workforce to support children with SEND, including autism, ensuring that their needs are met early and effectively.

[Mr Dhesi]

After a decade of per-pupil funding cuts and with staff workloads soaring, mainstream schools are too often unable to provide places for children with special educational needs and disabilities, including children in my constituency who are unable to access speech and language therapy sessions. Does the Minister think that is acceptable, and what is she going to do about it?

[Michelle Donelan]

This Government are investing £74 million in the first year alone of our autism strategy to promote a straightforward route to diagnosis and the correct support, and we will shortly be detailing our implementation plan for year two. The Department has been funding the Autism Education Trust since 2011.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

9. If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting.