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Jobs for the Girls: Two Years On

That is an extremely important point. Employers and people who run engineering courses should try to capture young people's imaginations. Talking about the developing world and the passion that young people have is one of the ways in which they could do it. My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley also made an important point when she said that we should think not just of women going into non-traditional occupations but men as well. Such a practice would help to boost the wages in those occupations as well as providing male role models in areas such as nursing, childcare and primary education, which is hugely important. The issue of primary education has come up a lot in my constituency and I am sure that it has in other constituencies as well. In many primary schools, all of the staff are women. It is obviously not good that there are no male role models, so we need to make a concerted effort to try to encourage boys to go into teaching, and into primary schools in particular. Another report that was produced by the EOC before it went into the larger commission in Wales was entitled ““I Want To Fulfil My Dream””. It looked at the opportunities that are available to ethnic minority girls and women. Some of those points are covered in the Committee's report. The EOC report showed that black and minority ethnic women in Wales are frequently at a double disadvantage with wider pay disparities than white women, and a lack of role models. They are also limited to certain types of job because they have to take account of family influence and religious and cultural restrictions. I hope that the Minister will consider ways in which we can open up opportunities to black and minority ethnic women. The EOC report showed that the restrictions on work opportunities brought about by family and cultural pressures resulted in some good financial consequences. Some of the women felt that they were being pressurised into so-called respectable jobs, such as dentistry and optometry, which are relatively well paid, but reflect a narrowing of choice. After reading the report, I felt that the idea of restricting women and girls to respectable careers was confined to the minority ethnic population. I was thinking back to the south Wales valleys and the feelings of the miners in particular who wanted their children to go into the white collar occupations, such as teaching and medicine. Generations of teachers came from the Welsh valleys. There was a strong instinct of wanting to get children into safe and respectable occupations. It is important to raise the point about the restrictions placed on black and minority ethnic women in particular and I hope that the Minister will take it up. I want to refer briefly to the modern apprentices. Huge opportunities exist to reduce gender segregation in modern apprenticeships. In fact, women take up fewer modern apprenticeships than men, so they start off at a lower rate. The opportunity is there to reduce that segregation. For a number of years, I presented the prizes at the Young Apprentice of the Year Award. The occupations covered by the award were mainly plumbing and engineering, and there was not a woman in sight. I always used to ask the employers whether any women were up for prizes. There never was and there never has been. Yet the employers said that they wanted to have more women taking up apprenticeships, but they never did. They were well-meaning, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Glenda Jackson) said, they did not go out and capture the imagination of women and girls to encourage them into their fields. That is what we must do. We must make a huge effort to capture imaginations, and the earlier we can do that the better. In conclusion, this report will move on the debate. Step by step, we are moving towards a better situation. It is taking a long time, but I am sure that the Minister, who has taken up her new post, will give all her enthusiasm to try to move things along.