BRITAIN needs more engineers. It is a widely held belief and yet we remain unable to bridge the gap between intention and action. Britain trades on the triumphs of its industrial forefathers while failing to safeguard its engineering future.

Only by introducing young people to the excitement and creativity of science and technology can we stay in the race. Snobbery and government bureaucracy stand in the way of progress. On the one hand industry is invited to play its part in education and on the other government red tape reins in momentum.

The Beijing Olympics show that Britain can achieve significant progress with concerted collective effort and long-term thinking. Why has our sports performance improved so much? Because the need to invest at grassroots level was recognised in the 1990s and today it is paying off. If we apply the same effort, care and urgency to nurturing new science and technology talent, we may bring British industry back from the brink.

This month Hazel Blears dodged a decision to approve the construction of an engineering school my charitable foundation has been working towards in Bath. Instead the secretary for communities and local government dealt the project a potentially fatal blow by instigating a long, expensive and pointless planning inquiry.

I could stick at it. After all, the inquiry may find in our favour – better late than never and all that. But we have been trying to build a school for nearly 10 years; the Bath scheme alone has taken four.

I could build the school elsewhere, but that would mean an entirely new project, inevitable delays and more charity money spent on consultants and lawyers rather than teachers and students.

Or I could find another way. Engineering is worth fighting for – school or no school.

Back in May, Blears urged cabinet colleagues to experience “real” jobs. They needed to be more “grounded”, she said. Blears has a good point. She should spend a few days in our research laboratories at Malmesbury or with the school’s other industry partners, Airbus, Williams F1, Buro Happold and Rolls-Royce. She would learn how to solve problems. She would learn how to invent. That’s what engineers do.

It will be engineers who develop a credible alternative to the combustion engine. It will be engineers who devise technology to solve our energy problems. And, of course, it’s engineers who have designed a school that won’t flood on the banks of the Avon in Bath. Engineers – and I don’t include myself here because I have no formal engineering qualification – are clever people.

Yes, engineers get things done; they find a way forward.

And if they can’t, they tell you. Engineers have an unwavering (and, I admit, sometimes annoying) grip on reality.

But still the number of engineering graduates falls every year. The CBI employers’ organisation calculates that Britain will need 2.4m workers with science and engineering skills over the next seven years, but even today three-quarters of our engineering firms are struggling to recruit. Britain simply does not have enough graduates to fill the positions. To compete we need more new blood. And fast.

We need to pick our future engineers early. Children are inquisitive about their environment and open-minded. Given the chance, they can come up with ideas that are truly original.

There’s an image problem to be addressed too. Ask children to draw an engineer and you will get pictures of men repairing washing machines or maintaining cars. We need people with those skills, but arguably it is not the most creative end of engineering. We need to challenge the assumption that careers in industry and manufacturing are dull. Using hands and brains to solve problems is an enormous creative challenge. This understanding should begin at school.

The identity crisis goes beyond the classroom and into the workplace as well. Regrettably, half of those graduating in engineering opt for a different profession. As a nation, we simply don’t hold engineers in high-enough regard. We are happy to revel in the past industrial triumphs of George Stephenson and John Logie Baird but a bit embarrassed if our son or daughter works for a firmthat actually makes something.

If we don’t address the problem, the slide will get steeper and we will lose out to China and India. Why have General Electric, Motorola and Microsoft established research and design centres in India? Because India has a plentiful source of talented engineers – it produces 450,000 new engineering graduates a year.

The liberal use of the word “innovation” in myriad government initiatives won’t fix the problem. We need to invest in the teaching of science, design and technology. We need to show that these subjects – and the people who teach them – are truly inspiring and creative. Attitudes need to change.

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