Schools: Financial Education

Lord Sandhurst Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I was not aware of the point the noble Lord raises. More broadly, when you talk to young people, they say that a lot of their financial education comes from their parents and family, including their grandparents, so I agree with the sentiment that grandparents have an important role to play.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, the fraud Select Committee has heard that far too many scams succeed because of ignorance on the part of the recipient. The Centre for Social Justice report, to which we have already heard reference, has found that two-thirds of primary school children receive no financial education and, notwithstanding what we have heard from my noble friend, that too many school leavers have no adequate financial education. What is going to be done going forward?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government share my noble friend’s concern. To be clear, in the primary citizenship curriculum pupils learn about where money comes from, how it can be used for different purposes and how to save for the future. In secondary school pupils learn about the importance and practice of budgeting, income and expenditure, insurance, savings, pensions and financial products. I think these are many of the things to which my noble friend referred.