Social Mobility

Earl of Courtown Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

Does the noble Lord agree that this is not just a matter of fairness to the individual, having a focus on special needs of some sort, but a great loss to the country? For instance, there is increasing evidence and experience—

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

This is a time-limited debate and we are behind time already. I ask the noble Lord to make his point to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, at another time. I apologise to the noble Lord but there is no time for interventions.

[Lord Addington]

I do have a moment to reply—which is the advantage of not being tied to notes. Yes; there is a waste to society. To go back to my point, if the wrong people are getting there, if you are not getting others properly qualified and they are not going through, and you want to create a fast track—which preferably will get people to the right position in society, which will benefit society—you have to identify it. I hope that the Minister will be in a position to say whether we will make some movement on this. I know that there has been some contact between us, but it is probably a good idea to let the rest of the world know what we are thinking about here. If we do not, as has just been mentioned on what I will call my physical right, it is a great way of wasting resources and the benefit to our society.

Secondly, in the debate on the National Citizen Service Bill—which, oddly, I managed to listen to about half of on a monitor and in the Chamber—it struck me that in a small way this was quite a nice idea. But it then struck me that many of the social activities that people might be removing themselves from because their parents do not do them already do this. In many sports clubs—especially the bigger ones, which have a mix of people from different backgrounds who interact—and art, drama and music groups, you have a point of contact with people outside your immediate group on a subject that allows you to interact socially. If you can do that, you have the aspiration and the idea that it is worth while to undertake the extra effort in things such as education.

This is about bringing things together. The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, suggested that bringing bits of Whitehall together is a herculean task. The thing is that two Ministers come together and work until they are dripping with perspiration; they bring things together and then two Ministers come in who have new agendas, budgets and priorities. How do we integrate this across the board and not have people fighting with each other about their little patch of authority? It is a job that I am afraid we will always be going back to.

Can the Minister describe the practical educational terms used to identify those who will struggle—how much further progress have we made? When it comes to the use of outside bodies, what attempts are we making through things such as governing bodies of sports to say that part of their job, for which they get some support from government, is to make sure that people are aware—younger people and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, people who are reskilling and retraining later on—that these things are out there and you can act on them. Nothing will work by itself; if you go into a silo, you will stay in a silo and that is where you will end up.