Social Mobility Commission: State of the Nation Report

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and David Burrowes

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

I echo the words of the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) and of many other speakers in the House today in paying tribute to those who lost their lives or were injured yesterday, and to the House staff for keeping us safe. It is very important that the House’s business has resumed today. As the Prime Minister said earlier, yesterday was an attack on democracy. It is therefore important that our democracy should continue unabated today, and where better to start than on so important an issue as social mobility?

I was just looking at Twitter, as you do, and I see that somebody has tweeted, “How can there be a debate this afternoon if everyone agrees?” I suspect many of us spend our time trying to explain why everybody disagrees in this place, and why we are busy arguing and falling out with each other, so on the whole I think it is rather nice to have a debate in which people can broadly agree that there is an issue with social mobility in this country that we all want to tackle.

I thank the hon. Lady and the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) for co-sponsoring this debate, and I thank all those outside the House who have sent briefings to Members sharing their thoughts on today’s debate. The November 2016 Social Mobility Commission report said:

“Britain has a deep social mobility problem which is getting worse for an entire generation of young people”.

The Teach First briefing for this debate says:

“Failing to improve low levels of social mobility will cost the UK economy up to £14billion a year by 2050, or an additional four per cent of GDP.”

Frankly, we cannot afford not to tackle it.

I want to talk about three things: Britain’s social contract; schools, to pick up some of the issues that the hon. Member for Manchester Central has mentioned; and social capital. Every generation expects there to be greater opportunities for their children and grandchildren. In Britain at the moment, that social contract and the expectation of social mobility has broken down in parts of our country and among some groups of people. Education is a key driver of social mobility—I know that the Minister is committed to this, because I have had the privilege of working alongside him—but in the parts of the country that most need social mobility, there is often little educational aspiration, and underperformance is entrenched. I agree that tackling that should be the focus of this Government’s education policy, rather than having yet another discussion about expanding selection.

Last year’s vote and the rise of populism not just in this country but elsewhere, including in the United States, was a cry showing that our social contract has broken down. As I have said, each generation expects better opportunities for the next, but I think we should be honest in saying—I know this from my casework, but also from talking to friends and family—that that is not how many people see life today. There is pressure on housing services, and housing is unaffordable for the next generation in many parts of this country. The labour market feels incredibly insecure, but also very demanding, which has a knock-on effect.

The hon. Lady mentioned the numbers of words that children from different backgrounds know by the age of three. There is some very interesting research in the Social Mobility Commission report about the number of minutes each day that parents from different backgrounds spend interacting with their younger children. People working long hours in an insecure job will inevitably have less time to interact with their children than those not in that position. What can we do to help with that?

[Mr Burrowes]

I thank my right hon. Friend for highlighting the issue of parental contact, but may I focus on contact with fathers? The Government have made great strides in trying to ensure greater opportunities in work, but we must also look at how to create greater opportunities to ensure that fathers are not only in contact but are involved in their children’s upbringing. I saw from clients in the criminal justice system that one of the prevailing factors for them was either an absent father or a father who was not involved in their lives.

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The importance of families and of having two parents or two important role models in life—and of both boys and girls having a strong male role model—should not be underestimated. It is no secret that I disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) on some policy issues, but the work that he did at the Centre for Social Justice and the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) is doing now on the importance of family relationships and public policy should not be underestimated.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicky Morgan]

I agree. It is not that parents do not want the best for their child. If you ask most parents on the birth of a child, they want their child to be happy, healthy and successful in life. I will talk about extra-curricular activities shortly because again, there is a social injustice in access to those activities. The hon. Lady is right about support. All the nagging that middle-class parents do about homework, or chivvying children to read more books, often does not happen elsewhere, not for lack of wanting to do it but perhaps because it was not done to those parents. Going into a child’s school and challenging teachers is anathema to someone who has had a very unhappy school experience. Attendance at parents’ evenings is indicative of the support that children get at home.

Aspiration is about aiming high for young people. I did not have a chance to look up the name of the school, so I apologise for not remembering it, but I went to a fantastic primary school in Northamptonshire, where a high proportion of children had free school meals, but it was working with the Royal Shakespeare Company and every child had access to Shakespeare and his language. I heard the tiniest children talk about Shakespeare’s characters and watched the older children perform complicated scenes—I would have had difficulty remembering all those lines, but they were doing brilliantly. The headteacher there had high aspirations. He said, “All my children will be able to do this and benefit and learn.” They were doing incredibly well.

I pay tribute to the National Association of Head Teachers for setting up its “Primary Futures” campaign, which is about getting adults into schools to talk about their careers and broaden horizons. When I was in the DFE, we set up the Careers & Enterprise Company. Broadening horizons, and aspirational and inspirational careers advice, are important. There will be a difference of opinion in the House about work experience, which we have debated. One week’s dry work experience in an office will not necessarily set the flame alight, but I remember talking to some apprentices, who told me that a week at Rolls-Royce, where they could see how the maths they were learning would be applied in the workplace, does set the flame alight. People then go back to school more determined to do better in their maths classes.

There is a changing labour market. In the article at the weekend that the hon. Member for Manchester Central and I wrote, we talked about the number of high-skilled jobs that will be around. The Teach First briefing says that, by 2022, the British economy is expected to experience a shortage of 3 million workers to fill 15 million high-skilled jobs. At the same time, there will be 5 million more low-skilled workers than there are low-skilled jobs. I did not want to mention the “B” word this afternoon—it is very nice not to be talking about the European Union—but, if we are to change our immigration policy in this country and have fewer people coming in from overseas, we must ensure that all our young people are training for the labour market of the 21st century.

That is my problem with the Government’s focus on introducing more selection. We do not live in a world where we need only the top 20% or 30% to be highly skilled. We need everybody to have access to a knowledge-rich, excellent academic curriculum. A renewed battle over selection distracts from what is needed in our education to deal with the demands of a 21st-century labour market, to give everyone a chance to close social divisions, and to build a consistently strong school system.

Research from the Education Policy Institute talks about the negative effects on those who live in the most selective areas but who do not attend grammar schools. The negative effects emerge around the point when selective places are available for around 70% of high-attaining pupils. The research says that there are five times as many high-quality non-selective schools in England as there are grammar schools.

Every child is entitled to an academic curriculum. Like the Minister, I have seen some great schools in some very unexpected places. I remember my visit to King Solomon Academy in London—the Minister will have been there too—and to the Rushey Mead in Leicester. They have a higher proportion of children on free school meals but are doing incredibly well in terms of the exam results they are achieving. I also pay tribute to the Harris academies and Ark in Portsmouth.

The hon. Member for Manchester Central mentioned the secondary heads in Surrey who had written about selection. The Leicestershire secondary heads, too, wrote to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Education. Impressively, every single headteacher in Leicestershire signed the letter. If the Minister has not seen it, I hope he can get hold of a copy. One paragraph states:

“As professionals who have dedicated our lives to educating children across Leicestershire, our concern is for all the children in our region. Removing the most able pupils in our schools will have a negative impact on those who remain. Removing the option of ambitious, all ability comprehensives, with a scarcity of academic role models, will impact most particularly on the least affluent and least able. Therein lies the most significant injustice of this policy.”

Academic attainment is important and we should set high aspirations and ambitions for all pupils, but pupils in the best schools gain something else, and I want all pupils to gain it. This was one of the things I tried to champion when I was in the Department for Education. I am thinking of the character traits—persistence, resilience, self-confidence, self-esteem—and the values and virtues of integrity, honesty and whatever it might be, that help to build a whole pupil. I was at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School in north London recently. The school focuses on building social capital among its pupils. It is conscious of the fact that its pupils will have to compete with the independent school down the road. I visited the King’s Leadership Academy in Warrington, which is a new free school, now over-subscribed, where behaviour is excellent, and where aspirations are incredibly high. All the young people are trained for leadership. Kings Langley School in Hertfordshire and Gordano School near Bristol are fantastic schools—I could go on.

Educating young people is about not just what happens in the classroom, but access to other schemes. I pay tribute to the former Prime Minister and the current Government for their focus on the National Citizen Service and other schemes: social action, volunteering, uniformed activities such as the cadets, the guides and the scouts, and the Duke of Edinburgh award. They all help to build up experience and confidence in young people. Those of us who have been employers and have interviewed see the ability of some young people to walk through our door, look us in the eye and shake us by the hand. Some children are taught that and encouraged in school, but some are not. These things matter in helping young people to get on.

I mentioned extracurricular activities. The commission’s report specifically talks about the effect different social backgrounds have on how people participate:

“One study found that 43 per cent of children whose mother had a postgraduate degree had music lessons, compared with just 6 per cent of children whose mother had no qualifications. At the age of 11, 85 per cent of children whose mother had an undergraduate degree participated in organised sport outside of school, compared with 56 per cent of children whose mother had no formal qualifications.”

I was very pleased that in last year’s Budget the then Chancellor announced funding for a longer school day. It would be helpful to know what emphasis the Department will place on that to help schools provide such activities. It is not necessarily about the schools themselves providing the activities; it could be enabling all young people in their schools to take up a place and participate.

[Mr Burrowes]

I very much support what my right hon. Friend says, particularly about social capital and building character through education. The Government have committed to a statutory requirement for relationships education. Many children, sadly, come from a background of conflict, trauma and survival. There is now the opportunity to provide them with the building blocks that others receive outside school to build resilience, self-esteem and respect for others, and help to build that character which is so vital for their long term future.

[Nicky Morgan]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I was very pleased to support his amendment on sex and relationships education, and I am very pleased that the Government have taken that on board and accepted an amendment to the Children and Social Work Bill. He is right to say that. One of the most important characteristics is resilience, or to use the awful phrase, stickability and bouncebackability: the ability to deal with what life throws at them and not be blown off course. Anything that schools, adult role models and other organisations can do, in addition to families, to help young people to develop that characteristic will go at least part of the way to building the more resilient and confident young people we need for the 21st century.

I do not think we will all agree with everything in the commission’s report, but it shows that we have a problem with social mobility. For those of us who are one nation politicians, that should make us very uncomfortable. There is talk of a meritocracy, but the difficulty is this: who decides who has merit? I would prefer to say that everyone has potential, but that in some cases the keys to unlocking that potential are more readily available to some than others. Today’s debate is about working out what those keys are and how they are handed out, and about building a consensus, or perhaps cross-party momentum, on how to do just that. But it has to be about more than words. Much has been done by this Government and by previous Governments, but there is much more to do if we are to show how we are going to renew our broken social contract and build real social mobility in this country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and David Burrowes

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I think we all agree that those who are seeking refuge from war-torn areas and conflict zones where they have been in situations of immense stress and disruption need all the support they can get. We have a system of appointing caseworkers who work with each family or individual who comes here to seek refuge, to identify their needs. In particular, they ensure that children with special educational needs or mental health needs get support, as well as those who have additional educational issues such as needing extra language support.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

Following the Government’s welcome decision on 28 January to provide additional refuge for unaccompanied minors coming from conflict zones such as Syria, but also from Europe, what discussions have been held in the Department about providing additional support for those who reach these shores, and to provide them with the effective support they need?

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend recently visited the camp in Calais, and he will know that a cross-Government taskforce has been set up to ensure that all those who claim asylum or come to live in the United Kingdom under the resettlement programme get that support. In my previous answer I outlined the particular areas that my Department takes an interest in, and we must ensure that support is delivered for those with special educational needs, mental health needs, and those who require additional educational support such as language support.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and David Burrowes

Thursday 14th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

5. What discussions she has had with her ministerial colleagues on tackling revenge porn; and what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the revenge porn helpline.

[The Minister for Women and Equalities (Nicky Morgan)]

As I have said before, the Government are absolutely clear about the fact that what is illegal offline is illegal online. We have criminalised this abhorrent act, and the revenge porn helpline has supported more than 3,000 callers since its launch last February. It is there to support anyone who is affected, regardless of gender, sexuality, race or age. No one should have to suffer as a result of this repulsive crime, and we will ensure that we continue to support those who are affected by it.

[Mr Burrowes]

Will the helpline, and other measures, help more victims to come forward for support? Will they also help to take down the vile and abusive content from the internet, and prosecute and, indeed, take down the vile and abusive offenders?

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Obviously it is important for victims to receive the right support, but we want to go further and make it clear, through education and awareness, that this is a crime and that it will not be tolerated. The internet can be a huge force for good, but it can also be a platform for abuse and intimidation. Staff monitor the helpline and provide support, but they have also been very successful in ensuring that content is quickly removed from the internet, and they work directly with social media and website providers.