Last Wednesday there was a Topical Questions session focused on Women and Equalities and two of the Government Ministers who responded in the session were from Sussex. One was Mims Davies who is the Mid Sussex MP and the other was Maria Caulfield who is the Lewes MP. The response to STEM was released at the end of the session and it came from Maria. She was responding to a question from Selaine Saxby who is the Conservative MP for North Devon. The text for the question and answer is below. The other questions and answers from the brief session can be obtained from here but this is the only reference to STEM in that session.

Selaine: Some 78% of top UK energy companies have no women in executive director positions, and 28% have no women on the board. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need to do far more to help women into science, technology, engineering and maths jobs?

Maria: My hon. Friend is correct. We have made great progress in getting young girls to take STEM subjects—the numbers are up 31%—but the challenge is to get them into work. The FTSE women leaders review has set a target of 40% of FTSE 350 companies having women on their board. The STEM Returners programme is key to getting experienced women back into the workplace and on to those boards.