Education and Social Mobility

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important but, sadly, repetitive debate. I say that because this issue rears its head every time we have a Conservative Government. Just what is the Conservative party’s fascination with grammar schools? When it comes to social mobility, the Conservative’s response seems to be to resort to dogma. The return to grammar schools embodies retrograde thinking and a return to a system that benefits only a select few—if anyone at all. There is no evidence, no justification and no basis for the belief that selective education leads to improved social mobility. The House does not have to take my word for it; the Government’s own advisory body on social mobility, the Social Mobility Commission, says that grammar schools do not work.

Education is the single most important tool available to each and every Government to improve social mobility in this country. It is sad that this Government’s fascination with selective education means that any genuine dialogue about how we can improve social mobility is lost in the noise of Tory MPs calling for the reintroduction of grammar schools. This debate is repeated time and again with the same conclusion: grammar schools do not work. There is no easy way to improve social mobility in this country and anyone who believes otherwise is sadly deluded. Social mobility can be improved only through a tide of political will, a slate of complex interventions and, most importantly, through unwavering investment over the long term, not just in one Parliament.

I am proud that such political will existed under the previous Labour Government; what followed was funding to help all children, not just the select few who are educated in our private school system, to realise their potential. Under a Labour Government, school budgets increased year on year. Under this Government, according to forecasts by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, school budgets will fall in real terms by 8% in this Parliament. Under a Labour Government, education maintenance allowance was introduced to help children from low-income families to continue in further education, whereas under the Conservative party EMA has been scrapped, the further education sector has faced real-terms cuts of 14%, and maintenance grants in the higher education sector are set to be scrapped. That is a recipe for a social mobility disaster, undermining all the progress made in recent years to raise aspiration and improve life chances. At this time, my constituency needs more help, more investment and more long-term planning, not less.

In 2010-11, which was the last year of EMA, there were more than 8,000 recipients of it in the Bradford district. At that time, my constituency was ranked 64th nationally on the index of multiple deprivation. By 2015, however, Bradford South’s position had worsened to 41st, which points to an increase in need and suggests that even more young people would have benefited from EMA. As I have told the House before, my constituency ranks 609th out of 650 for the percentage of individuals with level 4 qualifications or above. Furthermore, when it comes to the percentage of individuals without any qualifications, Bradford South is 74th in our league tables. Having a grammar school will not change that.

The Government should take a step back, reflect on their record in government—their flawed plans and inadequate investment—and do the right thing: end their fascination with grammar schools; summon the political will to back a slate of complex interventions; and, most importantly, commit to investment over the long term.