§ Mr. SternTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on recent initiatives by his Department in support of higher-level education and training.
§ Mr. Alan ClarkMy Department has decided to create a chair in defence engineering. Following a competition among a number of universities, we have awarded the chair on the basis of a joint bid by University college London (UCL) and King's college London.
The chair will have three objectives: to establish a centre of excellence in engineering and procurement matters relating to defence; to raise further the public profile and professional standards of civilian engineers in the Ministry of Defence; and to provide further education and training for MOD engineers.
The chair will conduct research in engineering issues of particular interest to the MOD, and intends to provide, from October 1991, a one-year MSc course in the management of defence engineering. The MOD will send about 10 of its brightest young civilian engineers to attend the course, and it is hoped that additional students will be attracted from the United Kingdom and overseas. We also propose to take the opportunity to rationalise in due course the provision of training in naval architecture, which we have sponsored for many years at UCL, by placing this under the aegis of the new chair.