Oral Answers to Questions

Trudy Harrison Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

The Minister for Women and Equalities was asked—

[Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)]

1. What steps the Government are taking to ensure that women are able to access high-quality apprenticeships.

[Gillian Keegan (Chichester) (Con)]

3. What steps the Government are taking to ensure that women are able to access high-quality apprenticeships.

[The Minister for Women and Equalities (Amber Rudd)]

It is good news that women now account for over half of all apprentices. We continue to implement apprenticeship reforms to improve the quality of apprenticeships for all, and we are using the employer apprenticeship diversity champions network to champion gender representation in industries where greater participation by women is still needed.

[Trudy Harrison]

I thank the Minister for her response. The National College for Nuclear opens in my neighbouring constituency on 9 February. This will add to an already fantastic asset of training facilities with world-class equipment. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that young people with disabilities are able to access these training courses and apprenticeships?

[Amber Rudd]

It is great news that the National College for Nuclear is opening shortly, enabling young people and others in the area to access the sort of education and skills that they need for the future. We want to ensure that apprenticeship opportunities are open to all people, and of course that includes people with disabilities. We provide additional funding to employers and training providers working with apprentices with disabilities, to support their learning and enable adjustments to the workplace. As well as engaging employers through the apprenticeship diversity champions network, we are working to ensure that Disability Confident badging is clear for vacancies on the Find an Apprenticeship website, including those for engineering roles.