Social Mobility: Local Roots, Lasting Change (Social Mobility Policy Committee Report)

Baroness Stedman-Scott Excerpts

Friday 4th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, for leading this debate, and I thank all members of the Social Mobility Policy Committee for producing such a thoughtful and important report. Its title, Local Roots, Lasting Change, captures particularly well the central point that I want to focus on today. As the noble Baroness said in her introduction, this subject matter could not be more important.

Noble Lords who have taken part in the debate have raised many key points. I promise your Lordships I will not repeat them, but I will just list them so that we all understand them: the size and the scale of the problem; the relevance to that scale of those who are economically inactive; and the economy. If we know nothing else, it is that only employers create jobs. The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, made the very important point that the best way to have an impact on social mobility is to have a robust economy. Long may we get one.

There is also the impact of operating costs on business, the business rate increase, and the VAT and national insurance contribution increase. Vacancies are through the floor, and if there are no vacancies, although we can prepare young people for work, where will they get it? The one thing that has come out loud and clear is the importance of data—as I learned when I was at the DWP under the direction of my noble friend Lady Coffey. When you understand the data and when you can analyse it, you know best where to focus your efforts. I consider data to be absolutely critical.

Turning to place and partnerships, my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, alongside others, raised the importance of place. I always say that anything we deliver must be known nationally, designed and delivered locally, and felt personally. I ask the Minister—who may not be able to do this, but I will ask anyway—to be brave about budgets. Spend the money where you get the best outcomes.

When I was running my charity, Tomorrow’s People, we were sponsored by Diageo, which decided to conduct an analysis of our work to see what we were delivering. The outputs were phenomenal and the cost per job was phenomenal. When he was compiling his report, Alan Milburn asked organisations he met, “What is the impact of the work that you do? What do you deliver? What are the outcomes?” He said he was astounded that so many of them could not say. Let us fully endorse the point made by my noble friend Lord Young about trailblazers placing budgets locally rather than centrally. We may then see some lasting impact on the lives of the young people we are trying to help.

One thing that has not been raised today—I am not criticising, as it was not in the report—is the importance of having a mentor. Some of our young people have a mum and a dad and a granddad at home who encourage them. They do not just tell the young person what it was like in their day; they encourage them to do well and give them advice. The young people I have dealt with have no hope. How does it feel to go home after being on a programme and say to a parent or guardian, “I’m going to get a job” and they say, “For goodness’ sake, don’t do that”. What can we do when young people are given this information? It flattens them all the time.

I give credit to a lady I used to employ, who loved the young people she worked with so much. I am not saying that others do not, but she loved them. She would take them to job interviews. I remember this lady standing outside an employer’s premises with a young person and she said, “Take your jacket off and wear mine. You’ll look better”. It was that level. When she got a call in the middle of the night from a young person from the police station because they were in a pickle, what did she do? She got dressed and went to the police station to get them out.

There are some young people who have this level of support, and some who do not. We need services and people to get them on the right road, but we also need them to keep them there. That would be right. The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, made the point about having a primary school teacher—I can still remember mine—who knows their pupils, but the pupils move on. It is critical that a young person works with someone who knows them and stays with them. Getting a young person into work is an output; keeping them there is an outcome. That is where we need to be. I have talked about the cost of employing people, so I will not go on to that.

I want to be robust in my points about the Social Mobility Commission. What an organisation it is and what great things it has added. It is led by Alun Francis, a great giant of social mobility—my noble friend Lady Stowell has already explained his impact. The work in Blackpool is a credit to him and his team, and a blueprint for others to build on and adapt to the place they are in. They have data, and I am convinced of their use. Can I ask, in the nicest terms, what the Minister is thinking about: getting rid of them or taking them out? If that is correct, please can the Minister explain it? [Interruption.] I am delighted to hear that. We do not believe everything we read in the newspaper—I should have learned that lesson by now. Can the Minister tell us whether she is planning to get rid of them, and how will young people benefit from that?

Let me ask the Minister some other questions. Where a mayor or local authority can demonstrate clear leadership, strong partnerships and the capacity to deliver, will the Government transfer real control over skills, employment, careers provision and budgets, or will Whitehall continue to hold the levers while asking local leaders to carry responsibility? How will the Government ensure that areas outside mayoral combined authorities—especially rural and coastal communities, where the barriers are often most severe—are not left behind? What is the plan for those places that do not fit neatly into the Government’s preferred devolution model?

The committee places significant responsibility on the DWP, jobcentres and the proposed jobs and careers service. Will local leaders have meaningful influence over DWP and jobcentre budgets? Will those budgets be capable of being pooled with local skills funding? Will the Government provide multi-year settlements rather than expecting long-term partnerships to be built on short-term pilots? Given that economic inactivity now accounts for the majority of NEETs, what action will the Government take on the growing number of young people who face no work requirements when claiming incapacity benefit—a feature not shared by countries with lower NEET rates? Does the Minister accept the findings of the Resolution Foundation’s report Lost in Transition? If so, what reforms might follow?

Finally, vacancies are falling, costs are rising and employers are becoming more cautious. What is the Government’s plan to increase the demand for young workers? How will they ensure that Saturday jobs and junior roles—the first chance to prove yourself—do not continue to disappear? Unless the Government can answer these questions clearly, devolution risks becoming little more than the administration of centrally designed programmes, and young people will continue to pay the price. We owe them more.