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

Debate between Lord Addington and Baroness Manningham-Buller

Friday 4th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)]

I am very grateful for the positive reaction to our report around the House, even if some noble Lords understandably emphasised some slightly different things and where they think the committee has not quite got the emphasis right. I wondered whether, as I am speaking at the end, I would want to challenge anything anybody had said, but actually I think pretty well all the contributions have been helpful, constructive and have supported what we have been trying to say.

This is not surprising. Many noble Lords came into politics or, in my case and others, into public service, to improve the lives of our people. What we were looking at was a tremendous waste: people becoming a drain on the economy rather than contributing to it. I am encouraged today by the number of people across the House who agree that this is of critical importance.

I have to say that I am rather closer to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, than the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, on maths and English, having had substantial problems passing maths myself. This did not prevent me running a charity that, at the time I left, had a budget of £30 billion—despite my lack of numeracy, not because of my fiscal skills. When 40% of young people fail GCSE maths and English, we must have a slightly different approach. That is not to say that these skills are not very important, and we must have high expectations of people rather than dumb down, but we need to think of different ways of doing it.

I welcome what the Government are saying. Those of us on the committee and others will watch and hope and challenge. I will end with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham: please loosen the apron strings. It is not just delivery locally, or money and power; it is also encouraging local freedom on policy, because that is where we felt the change would come.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, I must apologise to the House. I forgot to declare my interest as chair of Microlink plc, which deals in assistive technology.