Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

This year, China will produce something like 2 million graduates in engineering and engineering-related subjects. Engineering firms in my constituency tell me how difficult it is to recruit engineers, particularly female ones, and that when they train them up, they often lose them to larger firms. What can the Minister do to make sure we have a better join-up between business requirements and education so that engineers stay in this country and produce for our economy?

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the desperate need for more engineers, but we have been making good progress. Since 2010, the number of people starting an engineering-related apprenticeship has gone up by 52%, and since 2013 the number of people starting an engineering degree has risen by 6.5 %. If we can get a better supply coming through the pipe, companies will be less inclined to poach from each other and will actually invest in developing the talent themselves through an apprenticeship.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend is right to suggest that LEPs should take this seriously. Some are doing better than others on this, but our message is clear: they have a key responsibility, working with local businesses and colleges such as the one my hon. Friend referred to, to ensure that as many businesses as possible take up the opportunity of an apprenticeship. because that is the way to build the skills that his constituency and others need for the future.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

The Minister gave a progress report on the Government’s dealing with late payment, but, according to a recent small business seminar in my constituency, it remains a bugbear. One international telecommunications company was cited which not only charges a fee to be a supplier, but has 180-day payment terms. What more can we do to name and shame and make transparent these obscene practices, which clobber small businesses?

[Matthew Hancock]

The single best thing we can do about that is to pass before the end of this Parliament the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill, which is still going through the other place. That brings in transparency measures which mean that we will not name and shame just on an ad hoc basis, but have league tables of late payment performance, celebrating the best and admonishing the worst.