Social Mobility

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered social mobility.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I am grateful to be able to raise this subject, which I believe is vital to our country as we develop global Britain and look to a successful and exciting future. Among other roles outside politics, I have worked as both a teacher and a lecturer, so I am particularly passionate about education and social mobility. I have always endeavoured to be involved in them and to highlight issues and concerns about them.

Ultimately, social mobility is about ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to build a good life for themselves, regardless of their family background. In a socially mobile society, every individual should have a fair chance of reaching their full potential. Social mobility is good not only from a moral perspective but from an economic perspective: by ensuring that talent is harvested across the social spectrum, we have the opportunity to boost our country’s productivity and GDP.

Social mobility is one of the key reasons for Britain’s historical success in channelling the talents of all sections of our country for the benefit of the whole nation. Margaret Thatcher, for example, came from very humble origins to become, in my opinion, one of the greatest Prime Ministers we have had. She became Prime Minister because of social mobility.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend talks of Margaret Thatcher coming from a humble background. I wonder whether he participated in a booklet produced about 10 years ago of Conservative Members who also came from humble backgrounds. I was, and I think that was a useful tool.

[Sir David Evennett]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention. I, too, am a product of social mobility: education and social mobility have characterised my life. I was born into a family whose origins were in the east end of London, but, through family, education and opportunity, my grandparents and parents were able to develop and get on in life. I am therefore always grateful for the opportunities I had from schoolteachers, from the LSE, where I went to university, and from others who helped me to move up, be involved and have a career.

There are also business leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, actors and singers from humble backgrounds who have had the opportunity to move up the social scale and make something for themselves. However, despite some successes, for far too long the UK has not done as well on the social mobility front as I would have liked. Where someone starts in life should not determine where they finish in life. There is a strong link between adults’ income and those of their parents, and people’s educational attainment is closely linked to that of their parents too. That significantly affects opportunities later in life.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett) for introducing this important debate.

In my intervention, I mentioned a booklet that was produced during my early years as a new Member and in which I appeared. Its purpose was to try to attack the caricatures that were made of Members on this side and to show that they, too, had participated in social mobility in their own lives. I am a good example of that, having come from a poor family and worked my way through education, at school and three times at university. It is not that I got it wrong the first time, and had to go back and do it again; I can explain that on another occasion. It is important to show that Members on this side have personal experience of social mobility.

My hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) will have heard what I am going to say, in a debate yesterday about the apprenticeship levy. I heard what my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford said about apprenticeships; I agree with him. My point yesterday was that I do not think the levy has helped to achieve social mobility. The figures from 2015-16 show that the deprived 20% accounted for around 21.9% of level 4 apprenticeships and above. That figure has now dropped to 16.4%, so there is a long way to go. We need to build into the apprenticeship levy—into apprenticeships generally—the idea that they are not an excuse for trying to fob off other sorts of training, particularly for graduates, who may feel they are able to do something better.

Education played a major part in my own experience. Universities have changed enormously over the past few years. The percentage of people who received free school meals who are going to university now is much larger than it was even five years ago. That is very welcome. Combined with the emphasis on apprenticeships, that shows that there are good opportunities for young people to engage in aspirational activities, which will help them to make the most of their lives in the future. Society today is much more dynamic than it was even in the 1990s. There are good examples of that in the Chamber. However, I fully accept that the work has not yet finished and there is still much to be done to take the issue forward.

As the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) rightly pointed out, education is not the only factor. Housing plays a major part in increasing social mobility. When people come to me and say, “I don’t want any more houses built in my area”, I am naturally very caustic with them, because that goes against everything that I believe in terms of social mobility. My hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston) is laughing because there is a dispute in Oxfordshire at the moment over the building of houses, of which he is fully aware. Even social housing plays a major part in being able to provide people with the experience we want them to have, in order to take social mobility forward.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford for introducing the debate. It is an excellent subject for debate. As he has already picked out, and as I did in the apprenticeship levy debate yesterday, the subject has been something of a theme this week. Having a theme is good for this place because we can bring in different aspects of the subject as we go along.