Social Mobility Commission

Baroness Berridge Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I respectfully disagree with the noble Lord; I do not believe that that is the case. The number of children living in poverty has actually declined since 2010. In the recent social mobility action plan that we issued in December, we reasserted our aim to focus on areas such as the word gap, which we know is one of the biggest areas of disadvantage for young children. We have put more emphasis on high-quality post-16 choices for all young people and, as I mentioned at the beginning, we have closed the attainment gap by 10% in the last seven years.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, in 2016 your Lordships’ House had a one-year Select Committee looking into social mobility, on which I served as a member. We looked at social mobility for those young people who did not go to university. In fact, the majority of young people go into jobs, vocational training such as apprenticeships or into further education. Could the Minister please outline whether there is an intention by the department to ensure that some of the commissioners come from a non-university education background?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I certainly hope so, because I did, so I know that it is quite possible to have an interesting and fulfilling life without having gone to university. Our T-levels are very much aimed at that group of people who do not consider a university career as their priority. There is a growing awareness that there are other routes. There is an education and skills company that is also doing a lot of work with schools, providing mentoring and showing that there are routes other than just university.