Financial Education

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con) [R]]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered financial education.

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on financial education for young people. Many members of that august body are on the Benches today, and it is worth pointing out that it is the second-largest all-party parliamentary group in Parliament, beaten only by that on the communal love for beer. There is a reason why the APPG on financial education is so popular: financial education is a profoundly important topic that affects the lives and life chances of our communities right across the country.

We cannot sugar-coat this: we are in a mess when it comes to financial education and financial literacy in our economy and our society, and we have known that for ages. This is going back a few years, I accept, but one of the reasons why I was first drawn to this topic is that I did not receive any lessons on personal finance at all during the whole of my education. In fact, it is true to say that I have been taught considerably more about the formation of oxbow lakes than about personal finance, debt management, budgeting, saving, compound interest, pensions and individual savings accounts. Those are things that grown-ups worry about, and that have such an impact on their lives, yet they were simply missing from my education.

I am afraid it does not stop there, because I have asked my children—aged 21, 18 and 15—about their financial education, and they have received none at all, so there has been no improvement, yet we know that this matters profoundly. We know that those unfortunate enough to grow up in a financially chaotic household have no education from their parents, do not understand debt, except for seeing the consequence of it, and do not understand budgeting. Prudent financial management then becomes a middle-class secret. If we care about the poor and the most disadvantaged in our society, financial education must be a core part of the curriculum in our schools.

We know that financial stress has a huge impact both on our economy and on our society. Way back in 2014, Barclays bank did research that showed that 17.5 million hours were lost to the economy because of financial stress. We also know that financial stress, or financial worries, is one of the core components of family breakdown and the break-up of relationships, leading to arguments in the home and distress caused to children.

Yet we know what the solution is. We have had loads of research. The Money and Pensions Service has said that attitudes towards money and finances are fundamentally established by the age of just seven. We know that financial education in schools is directly correlated with higher career earnings, reduced personal debt, increased pension savings and increased savings more generally. We have all been elected to this place, and we have all come here, I assume, to improve the lives and life chances of our constituents. The single biggest thing we can do for our constituents in our time in this place is get effective financial education into the core curriculum. I say that to the Minister, because she needs to reflect on what her ambitions are for her time in this place.

We have had a crack at it. Back in 2014, we, or our predecessors, thought we had done a jolly good job, because financial education was included in the national curriculum in secondary schools in England, and in primary schools in the devolved nations. Last year, on the 10th anniversary of that change, the all-party parliamentary group on financial education for young people undertook research to see what the impact of that inclusion in the national curriculum had been. The awful truth was that it was virtually negligible, because financial education was not in fact being taught. We made the mistake as policymakers of saying, “We’ve changed the policy—job done. That’s the solution”, but we did not take the next step and ensure that the policy was implemented effectively. Indeed, 55% of teachers responsible for implementing the national curriculum were either unaware of the requirement, or unsure of whether there was a requirement to teach financial education, and 62% of children had no recollection of having received any.

Why did we think we had solved the problem with policy, when in practice the change did not take place? Part of the answer is that financial education was included within personal, social, health and economic education, and it was not measured by Ofsted, and we all know that we get what we measure. Another part of the answer is that teachers lack confidence, because they too have not received financial education, and they are unsure about their personal finances. Far too often, financial education depends on there being a personal convert among the teaching staff. Some schools do a brilliant job on this issue, but too often that is wholly dependent on there being one member of staff who takes the bit between the teeth.

Just today, Young Enterprise, which operates the secretariat of the all-party group, published a report called “Making the Classroom Count”. It has done research, and has assessed the state of provision and how we can improve it. Its first conclusion concerns the curriculum in both primary and secondary education. This subject is too important to be left to the peripheries of the educational process; it must be recognised as a core element. If financial education is a core part of the curriculum, it must be measured as such by Ofsted. The second issue is accountability; we must inspect for financial education, because we get what we measure.

The third issue is guidance. There must be access to trusted teaching materials for hesitant teachers. Too often, the all-party group heard that teachers were not sure which resources, from the plethora out there, they should trust, and they are naturally hesitant about branded materials coming into schools. We need the Government to take a step forward and build on the work already being done on trusted resources. The fourth point is about awareness; the Government must be clear and express the fact that financial education is a core part of the curriculum. Finally—I put it last because it is the least important—comes money and resources. They are necessary—we need money to achieve things—but if the Government took steps one to four, we would be 95% of the way there.

There is a solution to the money side of things. I understand that the Chancellor is never keen to write a cheque, but we have the dormant assets scheme, and financial inclusion is a core element of the distribution of dormant assets. We also have the National Lottery Heritage Fund, which has offered to match-fund the element spent on financial inclusion. Surely there is a way that the Government can make best use of that money. The Government are reviewing the national curriculum, so now is the time for them to take a bold step, and not just have the policy, but ensure that it is acted on. Will the Minister include financial education in the primary curriculum? Will she undertake to measure what she wants to see in our schools, and require Ofsted to report on financial education in primary and secondary schools? Will she embed financial education in the curriculum, and not just in PSHE? Will she show some ambition, in the light of the 2029 OECD programme for international student assessment on financial literacy? Will she commit to the Government applying to join that scheme?

Will the Minister develop the good work of the Oak National Academy, which has produced about 42 online lessons to support financial education and literacy? Will she follow that up with a commitment to developing trusted paper resources for the educational sector? Finally, will she consider making proper use of the dormant assets fund and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and directing additional funding from those sources to financial literacy education in our primary and secondary schools?

I started by talking about ambition, and I want to finish on that, too. It is profoundly important for the life chances of our constituents over the next 10, 20, 30 and 40 years that we grasp this issue now. We spend so much time on tittle-tattle in this Chamber, making cheap debating points that may make the headlines in the evening, or tomorrow. I do not care whether this debate is reported, as long as we can get this simple change to our educational processes and deliver for our constituents. Now is the time to do it.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew]

It is the way he says it.

[Chris Vince]

I can see the hon. Gentleman was a model student.

We have to recognise the way the school system currently works. If young people think there will not be an exam on a subject, they do not think that subject is measurable. Equally, if teachers do not see that something is going to be measurable in an Ofsted inspection, it will be moved down the list of priorities. We have to recognise that a lot of teachers have a lot on their plates. If we want financial education to be on the top of the plate—the cherry on the top, perhaps—we need to ensure that it is measurable, accountable and taken seriously. I do not believe that bolting financial education on to the maths curriculum will make that happen; I would much prefer it to be a bespoke subject. I have rambled on enough but hopefully I have made my point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew]

I thank Young Enterprise, the secretariat of the all-party group on financial education for young people, the Money and Pensions Service, GoHenry, MyBnk, HSBC, Santander, Your Money, Money Wellness, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, AQA, UK Finance, and the Bank of England, who all briefed in advance of this debate. I particularly thank the hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Claire Hazelgrove), my co-conspirator in the debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) on her first outing at the Dispatch Box. I thought she did brilliantly.

When talking about financial education, I start with my own family. I realised that I may have gone a bit too far when one of my grown-up children confided to me recently that she feels physically sick every time she spends money, so I may have overdone it a little. Equally, 175 years ago, my forebear, Henry Mayhew, was declared bankrupt for the third time. His great friend was Charles Dickens, and it is said that the character of Mr Micawber was based on Henry, so I will end the debate with one of the more famous quotes from Mr Micawber:

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty-pound ought and six, result misery.”

How right he was.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered financial education.