Social Mobility

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

To move that this House takes note of Her Majesty’s Government’s plans to promote social mobility.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege and a pleasure to open this debate on social mobility. Despite the subject of the previous debate, I contend that there is no more significant subject than social mobility, not just at this time but at any time. As is usual when starting a debate, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I am very much looking forward to the contributions of all noble Lords from across the House—not least the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Couttie, who is incredibly welcome today.

I am pleased to be able to call the noble Baroness my noble friend. Before joining your Lordships’ House she had an extremely successful career in the City before joining Westminster City Council, becoming its extremely creative and wise leader. Words close to her heart are, “Local people know best”. Hear, hear. I am sure that we shall hear many wise contributions from her, not only in her maiden speech today but on many subsequent occasions—not least as your Lordships’ House falls within her manor.

I shall read a quotation:

“where every single person has the opportunity regardless of background or that of their parents to have the chance to achieve whatever they want”.

Those words were spoken by the Prime Minister in Birmingham at the Conservative conference last month. They are important words for anybody occupying the role at No. 10, but they are equally important for all of us if we are to ensure that everybody, whatever their background, their geography or their socioeconomic status may be, has the opportunity to succeed in modern Britain. If we cannot all put our hands on our hearts and say that everybody has that opportunity in Britain today—to rise, to achieve, to get out from under—what is the purpose of politics? How can we suggest that Britain is a civilised modern 21st-century democracy?

Many subjects will be covered this afternoon—early years, education, employment, housing and health, not least mental health. Those are some of the key enablers of social mobility. Even more significantly, what are the key characteristics, the underpinnings, that must be in place? They are stability, security, self-belief, self-worth, self-discipline, approach and attitude. All those and more are what enable that most powerful of forces, social mobility, to flourish right across the nation.

I shall focus my opening remarks on school and sport, digital and diversity, apprenticeships and aspiration, character and collaboration. It is pleasing to see that the schools budget has been protected: it has risen by 3% on 2014-15 and will be some £40 billion next year. What everybody should seek is quality aspirational education for all—and within that not just academic work, but those elements of the curriculum that inspire, and touch our souls and hearts: sport, music, debate, drama, literature, dance and more.

I have a specific question for my noble friend the Minister on the proposed sugar tax. How will this be deployed to ensure that sporting opportunities are increased right across the sporting life of our young people, not least to put right the appalling decimation of school sport that happened post-2010, and in the current environment to bolster the excellent sports strategy set out by my honourable friend Tracey Crouch last year? Similarly, how will we ensure that character education is such an integral part of people’s learning? Of course, it goes without saying that literacy and numeracy are important, but in an increasingly complex and fractured labour market, resilience, grit, determination and respect will get people through—all the stuff which I know from first-hand experience, and which is set out in the character education programme. Therefore, what are the new Government’s plans to champion character education? When I attended the character education awards earlier this year, I saw at first hand what tremendous work was being done in this area.

Surveys demonstrate that where people have the opportunity to engage in sport, their numeracy can rise by up to 29%, with similar increases in behaviours. This cannot be underestimated. It is not just about social mobility, although of course that is in the mix. If we can turn inactivity into activity—this goes wider than sport and encompasses recreation, leisure, young people getting involved in sport, games and having fun—it will not just positively impact social mobility, but there will be a boon for the economy of potentially £53.3 billion.

An example of this to which I have referred in earlier debates is the Hackney Boxing Academy. Its trained staff mentor groups of six young people and work on numeracy, behaviour and skills learned through the sport of boxing. You could barely put it in starker terms than one of the graduates of this programme, Dylan, who said, “As a result of being involved in this programme, I am a completely different person”. What more could one say about social mobility?

We also need effective careers advice to enable people to even know about some of the jobs available, never mind be able to aspire to them. I was lucky enough to be a member of the Lords Select Committee on Social Mobility that reported earlier this year. We found that the provision of careers services for young people was at best patchy. This needs to start not in the sixth form or in secondary education but right from the first moment that someone steps into the classroom. They need to be exposed to opportunities and possibilities. When I was young I did not have a clue about the full range of jobs and opportunities that existed.

Role models are incredibly important. Working parents are obviously the most significant role model but also people from different backgrounds going into schools and talking to pupils. The Primary Futures programme is an excellent initiative of the National Association of Head Teachers whereby people from different walks of life go into schools and talk to young people. They do not wait until the young people enter secondary education but talk to them when they are in primary schools to spark young minds to think, “I could do that. What do I have to get in place to achieve that?”.

In Birmingham last month, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education announced opportunity areas to drive social mobility. Six have already been identified. Will my noble friend say when the next four will be released? What further information can he give the House on these opportunity areas? How exactly will they work to drive social mobility?

As I mentioned at the outset, collaboration is incredibly important. It is difficult enough to drive cross-Whitehall working but it is essential to collaborate with local authorities. If, for example, local authorities shared their data with schools, given the data that local authorities have, children could be auto-enrolled into free school meals and the pupil premium, thereby cutting out bureaucracy and any potential for those pupils to fall through the cracks in terms of opportunities.

What of life post-school? It seems extraordinary to me that in 21st-century Britain there is still such a disparity of esteem between higher education and other potential routes post-school. I believe that many people go to university who, with the benefit of better advice and greater foresight, could have chosen another route which might have afforded them greater opportunity and social mobility. Perhaps we should consider ending the national curriculum when pupils reach 14, and treat the years between the ages of 14 and 19 as a period of potential transition. At this point I give more than a positive nod towards my noble friend Lord Baker and all the work that he did on university technical colleges. That vocational opportunity is for many people not just a route but the right route that will deliver them a better life, better opportunities and, potentially, more income—not that that is a fundamental point.

We have heard much about apprenticeships. I fully support the ambition to have 3 million apprenticeships by 2020. That is not easy to achieve and there has been a lot of concern around maintaining the quality of those 3 million apprenticeships. I was delighted to see the announcement earlier this year on the appointment of a regulator to set standards and ensure that an apprenticeship does what it says on the tin. We and young people need to be assured that an apprenticeship is a badge of quality and that, if they put in the time to achieve an apprenticeship, it has real value. Will my noble friend tell us more about how the role of the regulator is unfolding? Some 2.3% of new entrants to the public service will be apprentices. This is a brilliant boon for young people but will also enable the public sector to truly benefit from what apprentices can bring to it. Payments for firms with fewer than 50 employees enable them to offer apprenticeships right across their operations. This is what 3 million apprenticeships can offer. However, none of us should doubt that to deliver that day in and day out through to 2020 is no easy task.

Probably the biggest threat and biggest opportunity facing our country is the digital revolution. It is already well under way and will make the Industrial Revolution look like a children’s tea party. The Industrial Revolution took place over more than 100 years but the digital revolution is happening sometimes in weeks. Why does this matter to social mobility? It matters because potentially 35% of existing jobs are in danger of being automated. Many of these jobs were previously guarantors of social mobility. What does this mean for people’s ability to climb up the social ranks? By the same token, 1.1 million new jobs in the digital economy need to be filled before the end of this decade. The report of the Select Committee on Digital Skills, Make or Break, which was published the year before last, recommended that in schools and through life digital literacy needs to be considered as important as literacy and numeracy. It is that significant if everybody is to be able to benefit from digital opportunities. Alongside that, superfast broadband needs to be available to all and everybody needs to be online. That is not just something that is nice to have; the internet and superfast broadband should be viewed as being as important as a utility because so much will depend on people’s digital skills and their ability to transact and interact online. When you look at the 7 million people currently offline, you see that lower socioeconomic groups and disabled people are highly overrepresented in that offline community. Talking of inclusion, I point out that 4,000 young people received an A-level qualification in computer studies in 2014 but that fewer than 100 were girls. If we are to ensure that everyone has the chance to benefit from digital opportunities, we need to ensure that they are fully inclusive for all.

I turn now to volunteering. I thank all the organisations that have sent in briefings across the various areas of interest in this debate. Volunteering can have such an important role when it comes to improving people’s opportunities to get on in life. Look at the debate earlier this week on Second Reading of the National Citizen Service Bill; I fully supported that initiative. Some 200,000 people have already benefited from it; more than seven out of 10 say that they believe that their involvement in the scheme has made them more confident in terms of gaining employment. It is significant, it is unique and it will have a profound effect on volunteering in this nation.

It is also crucial to recognise all the other organisations that do great stuff in this area, not least the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, for which I am lucky enough to be an ambassador. It is chaired by my noble friend Lord Kirkham. If you were to look up “social mobility” in the Oxford English Dictionary, and it said “the life of Lord Kirkham”, you could get few better definitions.

In sum, we need to focus on early years education, employment, aspiration, attitudes, formal education, everything that happens outside the classroom, volunteering, and opening up every opportunity. All of us across the country need to think about what we can do as individuals to try to increase people’s ability to get on in life. Essentially, the fundamental truth remains the same: talent is everywhere; opportunity is not. Our business this afternoon is social mobility; our business all days needs to be social mobility—how to ensure that we are doing everything we can to enable everybody to achieve their potential in whatever field that might be. That could truly enable Britain to say, “We are on the right path”. That could truly enable Britain to be a fundamentally better place: open, with opportunity for all. I beg to move.

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[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken the time to participate in the debate, not least my noble friend Lady Couttie, who made an excellent maiden speech. It is clear that, at whatever age and whatever stage, social mobility matters—and there are precious few policy areas that do not have a role to play. Security and stability are the bedrock of mobility. A nation where every individual, regardless of background, has the opportunity to achieve their potential: I believe that is a mission that we can all completely get behind.

Motion agreed.