Oral Answers to Questions

Will Stone Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2025 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)]

1. If she will hold discussions with the hon. Member for Swindon North on the potential merits of setting up a defence technical college in Swindon.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Josh MacAlister)]

Rolling out technical excellence colleges is one way that Labour is rewiring our skills system, to unlock opportunity for our young people and drive growth for our country, and alongside techs for construction, clean energy, digital and advanced manufacturing, they will build the talent pipeline to deliver our industrial strategy. Applications for defence technical excellence colleges will open shortly, creating pathways for engineers, cyber-experts, and technicians.

[Will Stone]

I thank the Minister for his response. Recently I have been engaging with fantastic defence companies such as Rowden Technologies. Its owner, Rob, is keen to support me setting up a technical college in Swindon to support our emerging drone cluster, so will the Minister meet me to see whether we can push that further?

[Josh MacAlister]

I appreciate my hon. Friend championing the work of local businesses such as Rowden’s, and other defence industries across the UK, and I will gladly ask my noble friend the Minister for Skills, who I am sure would welcome the opportunity to meet him in the coming weeks.