§ Sir R. Gowerasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware of the large number of vacancies which exist for apprenticeships in the naval dockyards which cannot be filled owing to the absence of sufficient satisfactory candidates; and whether he will treat as a matter of urgency the question of improving the status and prospects for those who embark upon a technical career in these establishments?
Mr. AlexanderI am aware that there are not sufficient qualified candidates to 2313W fill all the apprenticeship vacancies in the Royal Dockyards. This is due more to the very large increase in the number of dockyard apprenticeships offered during the last few years than to the slight falling off in the number of candidates. The status and prospects of youths who join the Royal Dockyards as apprentices compare favourably with those of apprentices in the ship-building and ship-repairing industry generally.