Oral Answers to Questions

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

What steps she is taking with the Secretary of State for Education on increasing gender-balanced representation in take up of STEAM subjects.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)]

The Government are committed to ensuring that more women can take up the opportunities in science and technology. Currently, only one in five of the technology workforce are women, but projects such as the skills bootcamps aim to turn that around. Of the 2,799 attendees at our first bootcamps, 47% were women. In the west midlands, the courses on women in data and women in software were oversubscribed by around four times. We are investing another £43 million to provide another 16,000 places.

[Stuart Anderson]

Science, technology and biomedicine have been at the forefront of our response to the covid-19 crisis and they will help us on our road to recovery. What steps is my hon. Friend taking to ensure that we get more people into those careers, including stem cell research for women?

[Vicky Ford]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: bioscience is a really important area and never more so than during this pandemic. It is our chemists, our biochemists and our biologists who are leading our way out of covid. The work that we do through our science learning partnerships aims to increase the take-up of triple science at GCSE—chemistry, physics and biology—and that will make sure that more of our young people can become the scientists of the future.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

What recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Justice on plans to increase the number of prison places for women.

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[Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con)]

What steps she is taking to help ensure that children throughout the UK have equality of opportunity.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)]

This Government believe in levelling up for people of all ages and we are investing more in the education of students from lower-income families so that they can unlock opportunities. Our weighted national funding formula and the pupil premium fund academic interventions as well as important pastoral initiatives and are further supplemented during this difficult time by the national tutoring programme and the holiday activities and food programme, which will also help those students.

[Nicola Richards]

Young people in my constituency deserve the very best opportunities outside of education. That is why I have been campaigning for an OnSide youth centre in West Bromwich, which has proved so successful in Wolverhampton. Will my hon. Friend support my campaign for a state-of-the-art youth centre, backed by local business, so that we can truly level up opportunities for young people in West Bromwich East?

[Vicky Ford]

I massively congratulate my hon. Friend on her true passion and interest in the young people of West Bromwich. The Government recognise the impact of youth services, which are improving the life chances and wellbeing of young people. The Government have already funded OnSide with £6 million last year to support young people during the pandemic. Another £30 million of the Youth Investment Fund has been committed as capital investment for 2021-22. That will provide investment in new resources as well as in refurbished safe spaces. Further details of the timetable and allocations will be announced very soon, and I recommend that my hon. Friend keeps a sharp look out for that announcement.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

What steps she is taking to support disabled people in the workplace during the covid-19 outbreak.