Social Mobility and the Economy

Debate between David Linden and Lyn Brown

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Lyn Brown]

Talking about the education brief is a bit beyond me this morning. I am sure the hon. Lady will understand if I just duck that and move on. I think honesty is always the best policy.

As this is a Treasury debate, I will start with a bit of Treasury stuff. May I gently say that the Government’s record on the economy, and certainly on social mobility, is not at all good? Average pay is still £15 a week lower in real terms than it was before the financial crisis. Not long ago, the Government confidently predicted a minimum wage of £9 an hour by 2020, but downgrades to economic forecasts have taken their toll, and the Office for Budget Responsibility now expects it to be just £8.57. A real living wage—one based on what people actually need to live—is already higher than that. Planned statutory wage increases will not meet the burden of rising living costs. Two thirds of the children living in poverty today have parents in work.

I know this has been said before, but it is true nevertheless. In the 20th century a contract was understood in this country: each generation was better educated, and had higher incomes, greater home ownership and a longer, healthier life than the previous generation. Even if working class kids—I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Putney for introducing class into the debate—did not succeed educationally, they could still expect higher incomes than their parents, and the dream of home ownership coming into reach. That is clearly no longer the case.

The housing crisis is now one of the biggest barriers to social mobility in our big cities. My borough of Newham is ranked second worst of all local authorities in England and Wales for adult social mobility indicators, a consequence of low pay, high living costs and insecure rented housing. The most recent quarterly statistics show, for the sixth time running, an increase in the number of households in England living in temporary accommodation and, since the end of 2010, a 75% increase in the number of children living in temporary accommodation to 120,000. Hon. Members know what a problem that is: a safe, warm, healthy and secure home is so important to childhood.

I was privileged to live in a council flat in east London.

[David Linden]

rose—

[Lyn Brown]

It provided my family with an affordable home, and we were secure in the knowledge that if we were responsible tenants who paid their rent, it was a forever home. That security provided me with the space to learn, thrive and strive, to do as well as I could. My little sister has massively achieved and is a well-respected solicitor, and I am in this House. We could not have done that without the security of an affordable property behind us. Today, far too few of my constituents have that benefit. They live in private, insecure and expensive tenancies, with their children forced to move schools often or to travel long distances for their education. Such conditions make it so much more difficult for them to fulfil their potential.

[David Linden]

I realise now that the hon. Lady was just getting into her flight there. The whole issue of housing is something that we have not explored in the context of social mobility. I am very conscious that in the past few years in Scotland we have abolished the right to buy. That seems to be a major issue. Governments will build social housing, council housing, but it is then sold off. Does she agree with me that it is time in England for Governments and parties of all colours to look at abolishing the right to buy, just as the Labour Government are doing in Wales?

[Lyn Brown]

I am going to duck that one.

Studies at Harvard University show that growing up with the toxic stress of economic hardship in the family can be severely damaging for a child, and they conclude that it has life-long effects similar to those caused by parental drug abuse or exposure to violence in the home.

I have been in this job for a few short weeks. One of the things exercising me is the very notion of social mobility itself. I am not sure that it is the right concept, and perhaps the Education Committee is on to something with its report that stated that we need a broader concept such as social justice. I fear that the concept of social mobility can be used to promote what I call a grammar school society, where a few of us can get on but most cannot, where the few of us that succeed are held up as a beacon of equal opportunity, whereas in fact those lucky few are a testament to hard work, yes, but often quite a bit of luck, frankly. A society where a few kids from deprived families get to the Cabinet table but the vast majority face daily hardship is simply not an opportunity society.