| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
10.21 pm
The Minister for Science, Energy and Industry (Mr. John Battle): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) on her initiative in raising this subject. We are at the end of this part of the Session and have only a few minutes before the House rises, but that was an excellent maiden speech and I am sad that it cannot lead to a wider debate. I welcome her as a chartered engineer--I think she is the first female chartered engineer to enter the House. She has a long and informed interest in engineering, and I believe that she is a member of the Engineering Council's senate. Her contribution will be valuable and I am confident that she will keep raising the issue of engineering. She brings a clear and articulate passion to the subject.
I am reminded of the first time the word "engineer" was used in the English language. In 1592, Harvey referred to someone who was
We recognise the importance of engineers and engineering to the modern British economy and the enormous contribution that engineers make throughout every sector--primary as well as secondary industries, and services. Even the most narrowly defined engineering sector--metal products, mechanical equipment, electronics and instrumentation, electrical equipment, motor vehicles and other transport equipment--accounts for 8 per cent. of the UK's gross domestic product. Engineering sales totalled more than £164 million in 1996.
In other words, it is a massively significant sector. We must recognise that engineers and engineering have a vital contribution to make to our national well-being as well as in a purely economic way. We want to support the Year of Engineering Success as positively and practically as we can.
This year, the national health service will celebrate its 50th anniversary. It is worth reflecting on the vital role that engineers have played in health care, and indeed transport, during that time. We shall also be celebrating the role of science, engineering and technology. I like to keep those three words separate and distinct, rather than just speaking of "science". We shall be celebrating "SET for life" week, and we hope that engineering will have a high profile in that event.
It is through the ingenuity of engineers that our manufacturing industries will develop processes and products that will not only raise the standard of living but give us all a more environmentally friendly future. Better manufacturing processes can help to minimise the environmental impact of products during manufacturing. We are talking about processes as well as products. I was interested by what my hon. Friend said about the quality of life in her constituency. It should be emphasised that engineering industries will be the industries of the future, helping us to clean up the environment and live on a better planet in the coming century.
Engineering is often denigrated. My constituency is based on engineering--my family has an engineering background--but, even there, engineers are always seen
as oily-handed sons of toil. I stress the word "sons": they are not daughters. Engineers are seen as semi-skilled, or as people using manual skills. We must not continue to be locked into that "smokestack", "furnace", industrial vision of the past; we must transform it, and see engineering as the industry of the future.
I was impressed by the language used by my hon. Friend, which suggested that engineering could be creative and, dare I say, artistic. At one point, she used the word "beauty" to describe engineered products and engineering processes. We ought to encourage the brightest and best of young people, particularly young women, to take up engineering at schools, colleges and universities, and to enter the profession. I hope that YES will pay attention to that. Perceptions need to be changed, and YES is a small step along the road. I believe that discussions are already under way between the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Engineering Council with a view to increasing the engineering community's contribution to SET week in 1998.
In Japan and Germany, a thorough understanding of technology is considered vital in top management. As my hon. Friend pointed out, there is a higher percentage of engineering graduates in France than in Britain. We must take engineering more seriously, in both industry and academia.
As was pointed out at Question Time today, although women constitute only 13 per cent. of those who study engineering at university, they also constitute 15 per cent. of graduates. In other words, women on engineering courses have a higher success rate than men. We ought to encourage the brightest and the best to see engineering as their future career, because we in Britain have developed engineering skills that are second to none. I hope that those skills can be enhanced in the new century, but we have more work to do. I hope that the development unit for women in science, engineering and technology, which is part of the Department of Trade and Industry, will try to raise the profile of engineering among young women, and will encourage them to take up the subject and build our future.
I appreciate that engineers are not required by law to register. As my hon. Friend may know, the Engineering Council has for some time been considering the pros and cons of mandatory registration, but no formal case has yet been put to the Government. Such a case would, of course, require the unequivocal support of employers, but I promise that, if that support were given, we would consider it seriously.
The Government's chief scientific adviser, who works in the DTI, is a scientist; his predecessor, Sir John Fairclough, was an eminent engineer. I take my hon. Friend's point that science, engineering and technology must be kept distinct. I hope that my hon. Friend will not be offended if I quote the words of a poet. In 1781, William Cowper said of another person:
Mr. Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks):
I, too, also congratulate the hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) on the style and charm of her maiden speech and
Does the Minister agree with Sir Brian Moffat, one of our leading industrialists and engineers, that sterling is now ludicrously overvalued, that engineering will not be enhanced and that there is no sense in further successive interest rises which simply feed the import boom and fuel the high street sales bonanza?
Mr. Battle:
The hon. Gentleman's intervention is unusual in an Adjournment debate in that it has broadened the debate, and I have only minutes to reply to his question.
Everyone is concerned to see that the economy does not adversely affect manufacturing--we shall debate that matter elsewhere. I have met representatives of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and I hope in due course to meet the senate of the Engineering Council. It is not my job to spend all my time in a glass box in the Department in Victoria street; my job is to get out as often as possible to meet engineers. In the words of my hon. Friend, I intend to listen and learn from them so that their thoughts and expertise may be injected into our political and parliamentary activities.
Question put and agreed to.
"That dreadful engineer of phrases instead of thunderbolts."
My hon. Friend's speech tonight and her skilled, creative and persuasive use of language will carry engineers positively into the future. She is an engineer of phrases and thunderbolts, and I look forward to her contributions in the House.
"Unless we engineered him with question after question we could get absolutely nothing out of him."
I hope that my hon. Friend will engineer Ministers in her Government with question after question so that they echo outside the House and result in engineering being taken much more seriously than in the recent past. Long ago, it was taken very seriously.
31 Jul 1997 : Column 561Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes to Eleven o'clock till Monday 27 October, pursuant to Resolution [28 July].
| Index | Home Page |