Education and Skills Bill
5:00 pm
David Lammy: We deal with this at the end of our apprenticeship review. We are recommending critical-mass pilots, understanding that there are some areas of the economy in which a lone woman going into a particular industry or a particular employer is kind of scary. You have to get a cluster of apprenticeships. I hope, through some of our direct payment pilots to larger employers, to bring on groups of people such as women, so that we can make advances in that regard.
We are also introducing mentoring to support particular groups right the way through. We already have sector pathways projects. I was with Care Construction, looking at women particularly, in Islington. What is clear to us is that the adult apprenticeship route, which has not come up yet, is another huge opportunity for women in particular. By that I mean that we know from evidence that young women at the age of 16 or 17 may simply lack the confidence to feel that there is a job in construction for them. However, at 24, 25, 26 and beyond, they are far more confident about knowing or feeling that they want to work in the construction industry. So the adult apprenticeship route is also going to be very important.