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1.50 pm
The Minister for Science and Technology (Mr. Ian Taylor): This has been a truly excellent use of these short debates. A cornucopia of information about the engineering industry came forth from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Fabricant). I give him full credit for initiating the debate and giving us all the information, indeed for being a veritable polymath--an engineer who can correct his own gerunds. He is a great tribute to the House of Commons.
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I genuinely congratulate my hon. Friend, because he is one of the people, a little like myself, who started life with the disadvantage of studying economics. But he rose above that and became a chartered engineer. He is a fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers--one of only two in the House. The other happens to be an Opposition Member, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker). I am reliably informed that there are only six chartered engineers in the House of Commons. I am sure that, if I have got that wrong, I will receive letters from colleagues.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Mr. Rathbone) also took part briefly in the debate. I recognise all the work that he does as chairman of the all-party engineering development group in the House and elsewhere to advance the interests of the engineering industry.
The backdrop to the debate obviously has the support of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Engineering Council, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire referred, as well as the various chartered institutes and many others with an interest in engineering. The Year of Engineering Success is one of those wonderful inventions which, while it uses the term "year", is slightly elastic. I have been participating in the Year of Engineering Success since last summer, but it will run until the end of 1997. Mary Harris, who is running it, is a fireball of energy, and is doing a wonderful job in activating people at all levels to support the cause.
My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade formally launched--any year has to have a formal launch as well as informal ones--at the BBC on 22 January. We decided that it was highly appropriate to launch the year at the BBC, because of the excellence of the engineering that has enabled us now to accept broadcasting as one of our daily pleasures; and we are about to anticipate the next leap forward in broadcasting in terms of the digital age. The BBC engineers and all those engaged in the 60 years since television began, which we celebrated only recently, are the embodiment of what engineering can do and how engineering at the forefront of technology enables something which is otherwise simply a good invention or a good idea to become something that we can all enjoy.
The importance of engineers in the translation of a brainwave into something which can go into mass production and become available at a price that people can afford is often underestimated. The skill of engineering at all stages of history has been most remarkable. I pay tribute to Trevor Baylis, who invented the clockwork radio, and the work that he has done for inventors, but many inventors need engineers to help them carry their ideas through to the marketplace.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire made two central points, first about education and secondly about the status of engineering. In the few moments that remain, I should like to respond to those points.
As my hon. Friend rightly says, education is obviously broadly a matter for the Department for Education and Employment, but, as Minister for Science and Technology, I have a profound interest in the subject. We need to ensure that more of our young people have an opportunity to prepare themselves for a career in engineering. That means that they need to be numerate, although perhaps in the context of the House too much stress on numeracy this week is not appropriate.
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Young people need to have an excitement about the opportunities available to them through the sciences if they are to meet the qualifications required and the hurdles set for them to go into engineering in later life. Therefore, at school it is necessary to trigger that enthusiasm and give young people the belief that the career they might want to follow will be worth while.
The education figures are not that discouraging. I do not have time to go through them all, but we have seen an increase in the past year, for example, in the number of students taking mathematics and computing at A-level. We have also seen a worrying fall in chemistry and physics. Biology was about even.
The figures are not absolutely clear. One of the things that Sir Ron Dearing will have to do in his review for the Government of the future of higher education is to take account of the work that he has already done on A-levels and vocational qualifications to see how we can increase the opportunities for our best young people to go into science, engineering and technology at university. A survey in 1992 showed that 29 per cent. of all degrees awarded in Britain were in science or engineering, with engineering disciplines accounting for almost half.
The other aspect is the status of engineers. It is worthwhile underlining the fact that the job opportunities for engineers are extremely good. That is part of the status. There are 84 chartered engineers on the boards of the top 100 companies. The Royal Academy of Engineering tells me that one has a higher chance of being a director of one of the leading companies in Britain if one is an engineer than if one is an accountant. That is a promising opportunity for those who are looking to come into the market.
Of the engineering graduates going into the job market, 37 per cent. secured places on graduate training schemes, compared with an average of 25 per cent. of all graduates; and 75 per cent. of engineering and technology graduates are able to secure first jobs in the career of their choice. Engineering graduate salaries are higher than those of many of their peers. The average starting salary of an engineer is £15,900, compared with an average starting salary for all graduates of £12,250.
It is important to bring such statistics out into the open, because too often it is thought that potential engineers will be in a difficult position. Not least, it is important to stress that the unemployment rate for engineers, at 2.5 per cent. in the United Kingdom, is significantly lower than general unemployment of 6.5 per cent. and graduate unemployment of 5 per cent. Those statistics underpin the good news about engineering.
The task for the Year of Engineering Success is to take that good news and broaden the appeal of engineering and increase the estimation of the value and status of engineers in our society and what they contribute. I understand the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire made about the legal use of the term "engineer". I know that it is a regular subject for discussion. I pay tribute to all those people who have made the effort to become chartered engineers, and to the incorporated engineers who do a great deal of the day-to-day engineering tasks in industry and elsewhere. I also pay great tribute to those in the science world who do basic research in engineering and make a long-term contribution to the success of the economy. All of them have their merit.
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I should certainly like to raise the status of engineers, and I shall consider carefully what my hon. Friend has said, but the Year of Engineering Success is a tremendous tribute to the work now being done by those companies which back it in conjunction with the Department of Trade and Industry. I hope that it is genuinely a success, because the British economy will increasingly need engineers to be competitive in this difficult world, adding value, coming forward with ideas, and making them available to members of the general public.
If more of the general public looked around their households, they would clearly see how many of the products on which they depended--
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It being Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
Sitting suspended, pursuant to Standing Order No. 10 (Wednesday sittings), till half-past Two o'clock.
Order for Second Reading read.
To be read a Second time on Tuesday 4 February.
Read a Second time, and committed.
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1. Mr. Thurnham:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what recent representations she has received about the employment of disabled people; and if she will make a statement. [11724]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mrs. Cheryl Gillan):
We often receive representations about a wide range of issues relating to the employment of disabled people, who now have important new rights in this area as a result of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.
Mr. Thurnham:
Is the Minister aware of the excellent work done by the Shaw trust, which has placed more than 2,000 people with disabilities in jobs at a cost of some £4,000 per job? Is she aware that the factory jobs at Remploy now cost three times as much? Does she not think that the subsidy of nearly £100 million to Remploy, if it were used as effectively as the Shaw trust uses its funds, could provide an additional 10,000 jobs for people with disabilities?
Mrs. Gillan:
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has raised the Shaw trust as an excellent example of what can be achieved by an organisation to ensure that valuable members of our society, although severely disabled, can enter employment successfully. The work of Mr. Tim Pape is well known to the Department and he continues to have a good dialogue with my noble Friend Lord Henley, who has direct responsibility for these matters. Last year the Department provided nearly £9.5 million in support of placements with the Shaw trust, and the Employment Service has every intention of continuing to contract with the trust to enable it to continue its excellent work.
Remploy factories are expensive by comparison with supported placements, but that is because they provide different types of support. When we compare like with like, Remploy's version of supported placement into work delivers placements at a unit cost which compares favourably with that of other supported placement providers.
Mr. Alan Howarth:
How many people who were on incapacity benefit have simply disappeared from the records rather than going on to jobseeker's allowance or moving into a job? Does the hon. Lady know? Does she care?
Mrs. Gillan:
I think that that is a most ungracious question. Everybody knows that the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 strikes a balance between the disabled and the employer and we ensure that no disabled person receives less favourable treatment. I would have expected the hon. Gentleman to welcome the Act and to talk about the potential that it has provided for all disabled people in this country.
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