Baroness Kennedy of Cradley – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kennedy of Cradley on 2015-11-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to ensure that tunnelling engineering skills in the UK are not lost.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

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In 2012, the Government published “Tunnelling: A Capability Analysis” which identified the tunnelling skills essential to deliver key projects, including Crossrail, HS2 and the Thames Tideway Tunnel.

To help meet this demand and maintain the UK’s skills base, the National Construction College delivers training at a purpose-built facility: the Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy in East London.

In September, the Government published the National Infrastructure Plan for Skills, to ensure the UK has the right skills base to deliver and maintain world-class infrastructure. This report sets out the scale of the challenge and is just the first step. The Government is now consulting with stakeholders across industry, academia and training providers to build a series of detailed actions to address the skills challenge.