Equality of Opportunity for Young People

Baroness Prashar Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Prashar (CB)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, for securing this debate and providing us with the opportunity to discuss the issues facing young people today. I particularly commend her efforts to engage young people through social media: last week, when we debated the toxic nature of public discourse, I suggested that we often talk about social media’s negative impacts but not how it can be used positively. It has been really refreshing to see engagement with young people and an effort to get them to participate.

In recent months, a number of reports have highlighted that we have an increasing divergence in equality of opportunity for young people and that social mobility is stagnant. The Social Mobility Commission’s recent report said that inequality is now entrenched in Britain, from birth to work. It concluded that being born privileged still means you usually remain privileged and that the dominance of background factors on future outcomes is further compounded by gender, ethnicity and disability.

One of the contributory factors is of course the discrepancy in educational opportunities in further and higher education, so vividly illustrated by my noble friend Lady Bull. While there have been substantial improvements in university participation among students from disadvantaged backgrounds in recent years, the gap remains significant. Students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are less likely to go to university and more likely to drop out. Those who do complete their studies start their careers with huge debts. Many have to work to support themselves while studying and have anxiety about their job prospects when they qualify. The Intergenerational Fairness and Provision Committee, already referred to, suggested that there may be a mismatch between the jobs graduates expect and the jobs available.

If we are to offer young people true equality of opportunity, reform of the funding of further and higher education must be one of the strategic milestones to achieving it, as well as ensuring that education aligns with business needs—indeed, we have to look at funding cuts too. Will the Minister tell the House what reforms the Government are considering with regard to funding and what action, if any, they are taking to align education and business needs?

The Institute for Fiscal Studies found that those who attend Russell group universities have earnings 10% higher for women and 13% higher for men. The university that a student attends is impacted by her socioeconomic background. There is also evidence that an attainment gap between students of different ethnic origins exists at the vast majority of universities; a gap that cannot be explained by a student’s background or prior qualifications. A recent report by Universities UK and the NUS called for further research to review what works in addressing these inequalities. Will the Minister say what plans, if any, there are to look into this area?

Good quality apprenticeships have the potential to be an important vehicle for social mobility, with lifetime earnings on average better than many degrees, and they offer the opportunity to earn while you learn. However, according to the Sutton Trust, despite the recent growth in apprenticeships there are still relatively few degree apprenticeships each year compared to undergraduate places, and disadvantaged young people are less likely to take up the best apprenticeships compared to their better-off peers.

There is a need to provide more high-quality apprenticeships—not just boosting the numbers, or employers converting existing employees as a way of claiming the money. As there is no centralised system for apprenticeships, the need for better advice is even more crucial; as is awareness of the apprenticeship route among teachers, parents and students. There is also a need to rebalance the value attributed to higher and further education and apprenticeships, to ensure that different and more appropriate pathways to education are better known to students and given equal value.

The other area is housing, which has already been highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, in her introduction. The Intergenerational Fairness and Provision Committee argued that the Government are not taking action to provide a sufficient supply of affordable housing. We have seen an increase in the number of young people living in private rented accommodation and a decrease in 25 to 34 year-olds in owner-occupation. This is a worrying trend. The noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, talked about her experience of buying a house at the age of 24.

We need action in at least two areas to deliver equality of opportunity. The first is housing affordability; that is, ensuring that house ownership remains in reach of this generation. It is disappointing that the Government are withdrawing the Help to Buy ISA in November, which supported saving for a mortgage deposit. Declaring an interest as a non-executive director of Nationwide Building Society, I can tell the House that, on average, Nationwide members with a Help to Buy ISA have been able to have their own home two years earlier and have required £1,000 less as a deposit than standard first-time buyers. Perhaps the Government might consider not withdrawing Help to Buy ISAs.

Secondly, we need a better private rented sector. Young people are vulnerable to bad practice. Again, in 2017, Nationwide set up the private rented sector partnership board, bringing together representatives of landlords, tenants and agents to improve the situation. The board has developed some themes for change in the sector and has set out the framework for government in this area so that there can be a strategy to tackle poor quality and affordability.

A housing policy needs to focus not just on building houses but on other factors which contribute to creating flourishing communities and a healthy work/life balance for the well-being of our young people. I am aware that the Government are taking the problems facing young people seriously and have set up a committee to look at inequality, but there is urgency to draw all the findings of several studies and research together to develop a more co-ordinated, comprehensive strategy to tackle this entrenched problem. Part of the problem is that there is no holistic approach, as a number of other noble Lords have said.

Non-profit organisations and businesses are partnering to do this. Among others, Cumberland Lodge, an education charity which I chair, and the Social Mobility Business Partnership, of which I am a patron, are developing an initiative to tackle this—so watch this space. I mention the organisations I am associated with not to advertise them but to illustrate that some of these initiatives are showing the way. What we need is government support and action to implement them and scale them up. In that sense, I really support the suggestion put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, that we should have a strategy for young people like we have an industrial strategy. The time has come when we cannot work in silos; we need the structural reforms that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, talked about. I look forward to the Minister’s response.