Social Mobility Committee Report

Earl of Kinnoull Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, what a pleasure it is to follow the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Corriegarth. His was a very eloquent maiden speech, filled with wit and common sense—common sense, of course, being not nearly as common as people like to think. The noble Lord, Lord Fraser, is no stranger to this House as his father was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Fraser of Tullybelton, in Perthshire, who was a much-respected Member for some years. Born and bred a Scot, the noble Lord has had a remarkable career in the City—much of it, as he said, in the Far Eastern markets. He is a lifelong unionist and played a central role in the Scottish referendum of 2014. I know that many in this House will feel grateful, as I do, for his steadfast and successful efforts in that vital battle to maintain the union.

Corriegarth is in Inverness-shire. I have some cousins who live in a neighbourly way and I rang them this afternoon to find out a bit more about Corriegarth. They said two things. The first was the reputation the noble Lord has for mirth and humour at the local dances and that we probably ought to install a dancefloor in the Bishops’ Bar. Secondly, they told me about the word “Corriegarth”. Of course, I knew what “corrie” was—it is a hill in Scots—but “garth” is a small field that you might keep livestock on. I said, “Gosh, why would you want to name something ‘Corriegarth’?”. They said, “It is very simple up here: that is where you keep the rustled sheep”. We will talk about this later on. Anyway, I know that we look forward to many contributions from the noble Lord, who I understand is going to be here regularly—and anyway lives just across the road.

It was a privilege to serve on the Select Committee. I add my thanks to the staff of the committee, and in particular to Luke Hussey, who ably led them. I pay tribute to our redoubtable chairman—sitting on her own over there—who worked tirelessly and with great efficiency, and dealt with enormous charm with both bad witnesses and bad members of her committee. I thank her for that.

I will make just three points this afternoon. The first is in connection with the topic of social mobility and echoes what a couple of other noble Lords have said. Our report was pretty wide-ranging. We have been discussing a number of the eight recommendations and I am enjoying the debate on those very much. But an awful lot came up in evidence that we did not have time to cover; in other words, a lot of good stuff went on to the cutting-room floor.

I link that thought with this year, which has been remarkable for the visibility—the coming into view, really—of attitudinal changes in our society. I cannot help but feel that the lack of social mobility is a root cause of that, and I will give an example. In a truly socially mobile society I do not think that the feeling of disconnection from our political cadre that so many have would be quite as bad. In fact, I think it would be reduced if we were truly socially mobile. So I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Baker, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that we need to discuss social mobility more often and expend more of the energies of this House on that. Accordingly, I ask the Minister: does he agree with me that this House needs to keep social mobility at the top of its agenda and use its energies fully to improve social mobility?

My second point relates to a home subject for me: data. Paragraph 289 of our report says that,

“data is the foundation of any policy. Without good data, these problems will be impossible to understand and then solve”.

There are two main concerns about data. The first is simply ensuring that we collect the correct amount of data—neither too many nor too few—that they are sufficiently pure and that this is done over a long time. The second is to ensure that the right minds have full access to those data so that they can actually analyse them, and that all relevant data are available for research.

Chapter 7 of our report sets out just some of the current mechanisms for collecting data. Gosh, this is complicated, as a very large number of institutions at local and national government level collect data for a variety of sound reasons. Often, I note, quite a lot of the data are very similar. I cannot help feeling that there is quite a lot of double collection going on. I note that some of the most valuable data lie with HMRC, which has a lot of the destination data. There are some gaps. Some of those gaps look easy to fill, such as those relating to private schooling; some look less easy to fill, such as a lot of the stuff to do with NEETs.

As a committee, we felt strongly that it was necessary to drive towards what I am going to call, in Euro-language, ever-better data. There is no magic bullet in data but if one has an attitude that one always has to improve the quality of the data that one has and the access to them, that will be a win. The data issue that concerned us most of all, however, was the lack-of-access problem. That was the basis of our recommendation 4.

I thank the Government for the encouraging language in their response. However, one of the very provisions that they cite in that response as helping where HMRC data are concerned—they said it in their own written evidence to us, at paragraph 295 of our report—was that,

“only researchers working on behalf of the Secretary of State can have access to this information”.

So they are saying that on the one hand, you can have access to the HMRC data, which are so vital, but on the other hand, only certain people, who are specifically, as it were, under contract with Secretaries of State, can do that. That means that access to those HMRC data is not yet adequate. But I take heart from the encouraging language and ask the Minister a second question: does he agree with me that ever-better data and ever-better research regimes are things that the Government should and do aspire to?

My third and final point concerns recommendation 8, which asks the Government to,

“commission a cost benefit analysis of increasing funding for careers education”,

in schools. The issues here are simple. Currently, this is an area of not so much spend or attention in schools. Indeed, we heard from Sir Michael Wilshaw of Ofsted that careers advice does not form a core part of its grading of schools.

Evidence suggested that many students head off to university and then discover, after a short period, that the academic route is not for them. Someone in these circumstances will suffer a reversal that is damaging to morale and at the same time will have run up, no doubt, a huge student loan debt. This causes loss to the Exchequer, as clearly at least some of these loans will never be repaid and there is a natural likelihood of a cost to the Government in relaunching a career. I was interested in what the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, said having dug up the figure from 2012 of £800 million in drop-out costs, which I am sure covers a lot of that.

It was not just we as a committee who felt that. I had an interesting conversation in June with Sir John Holman, who in his excellent report for the Gatsby Foundation looked into this very issue, among many other things. He concluded his own limited but, I think, very rigorous cost-benefit analysis; he had help from PwC in achieving it. He felt that some spend here would definitely represent a saving to the Exchequer.

Turning to the Government’s response, again I found the language encouraging—I thank them for that—but I feel that they did not answer the question. Asked a relative question, the response was an absolute one referring to some £90 million of spending. How on earth do we know whether this is the right amount or whether it is being spent in the right way? A cost-benefit analysis would no doubt greatly help to guide decision-making and would not be expensive. In his analysis, Sir John Holman concluded that just £54 per pupil would make a substantial difference. In closing, will the Minister therefore agree to look again at the suggestion that a cost-benefit analysis where careers advice was concerned should be undertaken?