Westminster Hall
20 October 2026
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Westminster Hall Actual start House of Commons
Follow its sittings15:21 - 15:25
Speaker 1
Order, order. I call Richard Quigley to move the motion.
15:25 - 15:52
Speaker 4
I beg to move that this House has considered manufacturing skills. Thank you, Chair, and may I say what a sublime pleasure it is to serve under your superb chairmanship. I must begin by thanking my honourable friend the member for Derby South, who due to his giddy elevation to PPS has allowed me to hijack his debate and talk about the Isle of Wight. Derby has also quite rightly received a lot of focus, so now it is our turn. While I will of course continue to argue that the Isle of Wight does best at everything, it would be unfair of me not to recognise what Derby does exceptionally well.
15:52 - 16:06
Speaker 3
Whether it is trains, aerospace, or the development of small modular reactors. Coupled with the exciting Team Derby initiative announced in last year's budget, it is a city that demonstrates the value of bringing together industry, skills, and investment to drive growth. Now, I'll give way.
16:06 - 16:51
Speaker 5
Indeed I will. As an MP for Derby, or as our Prime Minister called it, the great city of Derby. We have a city that is famous for its advanced manufacturing and engineering skills, and our largest employers like Alstom, Rolls-Royce, and Toyota are able to invest in skills through apprenticeships. And just last week, Great British Railways, which will have its headquarters in Derby city center, announced up to 600 new apprenticeships. But would my honorable friend agree with me that what we need is even more government focus on enabling and supporting smaller manufacturers to invest and train up new apprenticeships to address the skills shortages that we have across the country?
16:51 - 17:07
Speaker 4
I thank my honorable friend for her intervention, and the great city of Derby has two great MPs. And I agree entirely with her point.
The more we can do for small businesses to encourage them to take on apprentices, but anything that takes people that wouldn't go down the university route through a set of skills and into good paid work is absolutely ideal.
17:07 - 17:34
Speaker 6
I'm grateful to my honorable friend for giving way. We see a challenge in my region where foreign direct investment comes in, builds a big factory, hoovers up the existing skilled workforce from local SMEs and there isn't the pipeline there to replace them. So does he agree with me that it's really important that regional government takes on a role working with the FE sector and employers to ensure that there's a proper joined-up skills system so we're not just bringing in new businesses but we're supporting our existing SMEs as well?
17:34 - 18:21
Speaker 4
I thank my honorable friend for his intervention, it's a really good point.
On the Isle of Wight, we have, we send 25% of our school leavers to university, but also exactly 25% end up as NEETs. Now, the amount of effort that goes in the structure and support around getting to university, you can see, you can see how to get to university from the moon. But we don't put the same structure around those that would end up not going to university. So it's a very good point that we need to encourage homegrown skills. Now, I know some of you will be used to hearing me complain about the any, every day inequalities islanders face.
Don't worry, I'm not going to mention ferries. However, today is a welcome opportunity to celebrate an area where the island truly punches above its weight. And that is in the advanced manufacturing sector. Per capita, the Isle of Wight has one of the highest concentrations of technology and advanced manufacturing businesses in the country relative to our population. What is particularly exciting is that we are showing no signs of slowing down.
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