Calling for Place-Based Skills Strategy to Back Disadvantaged Boys

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I called for a stronger, genuinely place-based approach to skills, apprenticeships and vocational education to improve outcomes for disadvantaged boys and young men across Redditch and the Villages. Speaking in a Westminster Hall debate on educational attainment, I highlighted the town’s industrial heritage in needle making, aerospace and engineering, warning that too many boys leave school without clear vocational routes into stable, well-paid work. Citing evidence from Boys’ Impact on widening attainment gaps, I urged better apprenticeship funding, stronger employer-college partnerships and meaningful trade union involvement so education leads to opportunity, not uncertainty.