Social Mobility: Public Schools

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, the brief says that there are no damn silly questions in your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister and, indeed, the House and the whole country know that public schools are not charities. Their existence and treatment as charities brings charity law into disrepute. Why do we not end that arrangement, and if we need to subsidise private education—many might well want that; I do not know—transfer responsibility for subsidy from charity law to the Finance Act? Then we can have a full debate in Parliament, in the House of Commons when it is dealing with Finance Act issues, on what that level of subsidy should be.

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord raises an interesting point which begs the question of why, if that was the key issue to be addressed, his Government did not tackle that over their 13 years. The point is that this is intergenerational; it stretches over a long time and the solutions will take a long time coming. The problems have been a long time coming, too, and this Government are focusing particularly on the work of people such as Graham Allen on early intervention in specialising and targeting the help at the poorer families to redress that balance.