Social Mobility

Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Tyler for introducing the debate and apologise to her and other Members in the Chamber for my being a few moments late. It was one of those annoying times when the first train was cancelled and the second got stuck outside Waterloo. I do apologise.

I very much appreciate the degree to which, by having this debate, my noble friend has focused our minds on the work of the APPG and, in particular, the report, with its seven key truths about social mobility. I was particularly struck by the commonsense definition of social mobility: the extent to which where you end up in terms of social class is different from where you started. It pointed out that that means that sometimes, people go down as well as up. It is also linked with a sense of happiness and well-being. You need to have aspirations—this comes out in character and resilience—and to have aspirations you need to be able to see a better future for yourself.

I want to concentrate my remarks on the universities as a key determinant of later opportunities. Great strides have been made in widening participation over the last two decades. For those in the socio-economic bracket of the lowest 20%, the difference in participation has gone from 9% in 2004 to 14% in 2011-12, which is very significant. For the bottom two quintiles it is now up to almost 20%, but that compares to 45% for the top quintile. It is therefore interesting that whereas the introduction of tuition fees has seen a 2% to 3% fall-off in application rates from the top quintile, this is not true of the bottom quintile. Those in the lower socio-economic brackets have actually maintained their participation rates rather than falling off. Equally, it is still three times more likely that if you come from the top economic group, you will go to university—and disproportionately so if you go to a private rather than a state school.

The publication earlier this week of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission’s Fair Access Challenge in relation to universities, which reprised a report that it published last year, reminds us that while the general feeling in relation to universities is positive from the lower socio-economic groups, in the top Russell group universities the participation from those bottom groups is far lower, and fell during that same period of 2004 to 2012. Much of this, as the Seven Key Truths report makes clear, is because state school pupils do not achieve the required entry grades. This is why it is so important to improve the quality of teaching and teachers in state schools. As the noble Lord, Lord Knight, indicated, this is possible. The position of the London boroughs shows so well what can be achieved.

However, the conundrum is that there are still something like 3,700 or so young people who achieve the required grades but do not apply. This suggests that the widening participation message is not reaching them or, perhaps more significantly, their teachers. The message to the Government from this is that we most not relax the widening participation agenda, whether it is through pressure from OFFA or HEFCE’s funding towards widening participation.

I should like to flag up two very important issues. First, on information, advice and guidance, there has been an almost complete collapse of careers education in schools and it is absolutely vital that young people get good and relevant advice. Secondly, the national scholarship programme needs reform. Most of the funding for this comes from the universities themselves, some of which use it for fee remission and fee waivers. Research has shown that this is much less effective than such things as supporting summer schools and outreach programmes. We need to be much smarter in using this money.