Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has praised Newcastle MP Chi Onwurah for her work encouraging more women and girls to take up a career in engineering.

Mr Corbyn highlighted her efforts as he spoke to the EEF, the body representing manufacturers.

The Labour leader also set out Labour’s plans to change the economy. He said it had been dominated by finance for decades, and he wanted it to be led by what he called “the productive economy.”

Ms Onwurah, Labour MP for Newcastle Central and a Shadow Business Minister, was an engineer before becoming an MP and headed the Telecoms Technology Division at OFCOM, the UK Telecom Regulator.

She has campaigned to get more women involved in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, including speaking to students and writing articles.

Mr Corbyn pointed out that the EEF has a female chair, engineer Dame Judith Hackitt.

But he continued: “Women now make up 43 percent of GPs and about half of all solicitors, but only eight percent of professional engineers. And this has remained static under this Government, while the proportion of women working in ‘high-tech’ industries has actually declined.”

Newcastle Central MP, Chi Onwurah
Newcastle Central MP, Chi Onwurah

He highlighted the work of Ms Onwurah and Rebecca Long-Bailey, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, saying: “My mum was a fierce advocate for young women going into science and engineering not just a matter of social justice, but as an economic imperative because we cannot build a more prosperous economy without making use of the talents of everyone.

“And I know both Rebecca Long-Bailey and Chi Onwurah are committed to campaigning in opposition and acting in government to ensure that women are not held back in industry.”

Mr Corbyn said governments had allowed the banking sector to do whatever it wanted in return for the tax revenues it generated, but the result had been “an economy with more risk, more volatility and more instability”.

In comments criticising both recent Labour governments and the Conservative government, he said: “For forty years, deregulated finance has progressively become more powerful. Its dominance over industry, obvious and destructive; its control of politics, pernicious and undemocratic.

“The size and power of finance created a generation of politicians who thought the City of London could power the whole economy.

“Out of control financial wizardry and gambling were left barely regulated, while the real economies in once strong industrial areas were put into managed decline.

“The welfare state was left to pick up the slack with sticking plaster redistribution to the people and places held back by the finance-led boom of predominantly the South East of England.”

And he pledged: “The next Labour Government will be the first in 40 years to stand up for the real economy.

“We will take decisive action to make finance the servant of industry not the masters of all.”

Conservative MP and Treasury Minister Robert Jenrick said: “Labour don’t know how to handle the economy and would end up harming Britain’s businesses, and there would be fewer good jobs for people as a result.

“We are stepping in to make sure businesses play by the rules, after Labour’s failure to properly regulate the banks.

“Only the Conservatives can build a stronger, fairer economy that works for everyone.”