Social Mobility: Careers Education

Harriet Cross Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Wrexham (Andrew Ranger) for securing this debate, and all Members for their contributions. I am, of course, very pleased to respond to today’s important debate on behalf of the Opposition.

It is an undeniable truth that while talent is spread evenly across the UK, opportunity is not. We in the Conservative party take real pride in our record on expanding opportunity and social mobility to ensure that every young person, regardless of their background, no matter where they are from, has the chance to achieve their full potential and build the best possible career for themselves. More than 5.8 million apprenticeships across 700 occupations, from level 2 to degree level and backed by £2.4 billion by 2024-25, were started under successive Conservative Governments, giving young people the chance to gain real-world experience, to earn while they learn and to develop the skills needed to succeed in the workplace.

We are equally proud of our achievement in the schools system. The Conservatives drove up school performance across the board, with 90% of schools rated good or outstanding at the end of our time in office, up from 68% under Labour. Under the Conservatives, England became one of the top-performing countries for education in the western world. It was named “best in the west” for reading, and recently for maths, and it is in the top five globally for science. This transformation did not happen by accident; it happened because the Conservative party relentlessly focused on standards, rigour and ensuring excellence to help drive opportunity for all.

We can contrast that with other places in the UK—for example, Scotland. Nowhere is the effect of a Government allowing ideology rather than evidence to drive education policy more obvious than in Scotland. After almost two decades of the SNP being in power, its failure to close—indeed, its unrivalled ability to increase—the attainment gap in our schools is a record that should shame the SNP.

Every day, the impact of this failure is being borne out in the life chances of children and young people across Scotland. The attainment gap between the poorest and wealthiest school leavers is at a five-year high. Young people from the most deprived areas in Scotland are over three times less likely to enter work or further education compared with those in the least deprived areas. Across science, reading and maths, there is an average performance gap of over 90% between the top and bottom socioeconomic classes, and pupils from the poorest areas are 23% less likely to leave school with at least one national 5, increasing to 38% for highers.

Scotland’s schools were once rated among the best in the world. We are now ranked 14th in Europe for reading, 30th for maths and 32nd for science. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said:

“something, somewhere is going wrong in Scottish education.”

That “something” and “somewhere” can be found in the ideology of consecutive SNP Governments at Holyrood.

I return to the Conservatives’ record at Westminster. We encouraged every secondary school to have a trained careers leader, to make the most of available connections and to co-ordinate and integrate the careers programme throughout schools. We launched the new careers programme, offering young people strengthened careers advice that would see all year 8 to 13 pupils have at least six opportunities to meet a range of providers of technical education, giving pupils an understanding of the full range of opportunities available to them, including apprenticeships, T-levels and higher technical qualifications —not just the traditional academic routes.

If social mobility is to continue to improve, there must be no drift on the education and skills agenda under the current Labour Government. However, we have already seen the Government cut the minimum duration of apprenticeships from 12 to eight months. They have also ended the requirement for adult apprentices to complete English and maths functional skills. There is a proposal to divert half of the apprenticeship levy into other non-apprenticeship schemes—a change that will halve the number of quality apprenticeships available to young people—and level 7 apprenticeships are to be scrapped, which has been described as a direct attack on social mobility.

We should also be clear that careers education and facilitation of social mobility are not delivered in a vacuum; they depend on stable staffing, adequate funding and overall stability in the education sector. Changes to the national pay and curriculum rules in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill risk undermining the very autonomy that has driven improvement in some of the most disadvantaged communities. The tax on independent schools is projected to push up to 90,000 pupils into the state system, swelling class sizes and putting even more pressure on local schools already struggling to balance the books. The rise in employer national insurance contributions has hit schools and colleges hard.

When she winds up today, I hope that the Minister will outline how schools can continue to provide meaningful careers guidance and prioritise maximising social mobility for their students when they are struggling to pay their staff overheads and manage rising class sizes. If we are serious about social mobility, as I believe all hon. Members present are, then careers education cannot be an afterthought. It must be embedded in the curriculum design, teacher training, local employer partnership and the national policy. The Conservative party will continue to champion opportunity and to support high standards, academic excellence and rigorous technical education. We will always stand up for the right of every young person to choose their path, find their passion and make the most of their potential.