Steve Yemm

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Richard Quigley) for securing this important debate at a time when our economy is undergoing transformation. AI, robotics and automation are changing how we manufacture and the skills that our businesses need. If we are serious about reindustrialisation, we have to make sure that our workforce is ready to seize the opportunity that those changes will bring. For places like my constituency of Mansfield, that means rebuilding the connections between education, local employees and employers, and skilled employment. Further education providers, including colleges like West Notts college in my constituency, are critical to delivering that. On constituency visits, I have been fortunate to see the great work that is already being done by employers working in partnership with West Notts college and Nottingham Trent University. One such visit was to a local aerospace and nuclear electronics company, Glenair, which has recently taken on 60 new apprentices in Mansfield. Often, people consider apprenticeships as an option for school leavers, but what I find in my area is that those opportunities exist equally for adults who want to retrain, change careers or develop new skills. I am therefore very encouraged that Mansfield recorded 680 new apprenticeship starts in 2024-25, more than half of which were taken up by people over the age of 25. The backdrop to this discussion, as Make UK has reported, is that there are almost 50,000 live vacancies across UK manufacturing. Three in five small or medium-sized manufacturing enterprises identify a lack of the right type of technical skill as a key barrier to recruitment. That apparent weakness can also be seen as an opportunity. For areas like mine, reindustrialisation and the ideas around it represent a real chance to build on our proud industrial heritage and create a new generation of skilled and well-paid jobs, but we have to make sure that local people have the skills to take on those opportunities, whether they are young people starting their careers or adults looking to retrain and learn something new, and skills for a new economy. If we get that right, as a Government and as a country, we can make sure that the industries of the future bring investment, opportunity and prosperity to places like Mansfield and that local people are properly equipped to play their full part in sharing our economic future.