To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to increase (a) female and (b) BAME representation in the rail industry.
Answered on
12 March 2021
In 2016, the Government set ambitions through the Transport Infrastructure Skills Strategy (TISS) to increase apprenticeships in road and rail client bodies to help address skills shortages in the transport sector, ensuring that the transport sector has the capacity and capability to deliver planned investment and to increase diversity. These included a 20% increase in BAME representation in line with government targets, and 20% of technical and engineering roles to be filled by women, reaching parity with the working population by 2030.
Reports in 2019/20 demonstrated that the number of BAME representation had exceeded the target at 21% with a slight decrease in representation from females at 12%, down from 14.8% on previous reporting periods.
The Department is committed to ensuring that the transport workforce better reflects our diverse society. As part of the ongoing work to develop a Transport Skills Strategy, the Department has been working with a range of stakeholders leading on the skills and employment agenda, which includes Diversity, Inclusion and Social Mobility. The new Transport Skills Strategy (TSS) will better reflect the challenges currently faced by the transport industry and will aim to help remove barriers to roles by improving diversity and accessibility, ensuring that transport careers are available to everyone.
Further to this, the recent Emergency Recovery Measures Agreements applied to a number of Train Operating Companies, included aspirational targets to encourage the increased recruitment of female and BAME candidates over the term of the contract with a requirement to demonstrate the implementation of specific measures to monitor success.