Manufacturing Skills

Sureena Brackenridge Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Sureena Brackenridge (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) for securing this important debate. Wolverhampton and Willenhall helped build Britain and beyond. Generations of skilled engineers, metalworkers and manufacturers made products that were sold across the world. Manufacturing skills are fundamental to places like mine, and call for policymakers, industry, schools and colleges to work together to rise to this Government’s ambition to reindustrialise our country.

As the MP for Wolverhampton North East, I represent a constituency with a proud industrial heritage and a thriving manufacturing base, which forms an industrial ecosystem that supports skilled jobs, innovation and economic growth. While the industries have evolved, the principle has remained the same: success depends on having the skilled workforce to innovate, compete and grow, yet employers across the country continue to report shortages in the technical skills they need to grow and innovate.

I commend Collins Aerospace, which chose Wolverhampton to host its new world-leading engineering centre of excellence for aircraft systems in innovation, leading the charge on collaboration with industry and academia. I was delighted this year when City of Wolverhampton college secured technical excellence college status for advanced manufacturing. That is a rubber stamp of confidence in places such as Wolverhampton, which are now among the national leaders in technical education and helping to develop the future engineers, technicians and skilled manufacturing workers that our local economy needs. I also welcome the Government’s commitment to developing a new school curriculum that values technical and vocational education alongside academic achievement. As a former school leader, I know that for far too long technical routes have been treated as a second choice.

Apprenticeship starts have begun to move in the right direction; in 2024-25, they increased by more than 13,000 on the previous year. That is encouraging progress after years in which they consistently failed to recover to the level needed by our economy and manufacturing sector.

However, many training providers report that funding bands no longer reflect the real cost of delivering high-quality technical training, while employers and colleges continue to face additional costs in training welders, fabricators, CNC machinists and engineering technicians, despite those being precisely the skills that our economy needs more of. A skills policy works best when decisions are made closer to the communities and employers that they affect. Greater devolution of skills and economic development powers gives manufacturing communities in places such as the west midlands a strong voice in shaping local training provision. Local employers, colleges and training providers are often best placed to identify the workforce needs of our advanced manufacturing and engineering sectors.

When will the Government conclude their review of apprenticeship funding bands? Will engineering and manufacturing apprenticeships at levels 2 and 3 be prioritised to address critical skills shortages? Will the Government work with Richard Parker, the Mayor of the West Midlands, and with the combined authority, local colleges and schools, training providers and employers, to ensure that Wolverhampton and Willenhall have the engineering and manufacturing skills provision needed to meet the demands of major employers and their supply chains, so that local people can access the highly skilled jobs that will drive Britain’s reindustrialisation?