Social Mobility

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

As the mover of the motion and the Minister are present, we can start slightly earlier. We can run on until the end of the debate’s allotted time. I call Sir David Evennett.

[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 Robertson, and to be able to raise the important issue of social mobility. I am absolutely delighted to see that the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), will respond to the debate.

This matter has interested and concerned me for many years. Having been so fortunate as to be a product of social mobility, as are my family, I am keen to see it advanced. My family originated in the east end of London, in Bow and Poplar. Through education, hard work, opportunity, determination and good fortune, my grandfather, Thomas Evennett, and my father, Norman Evennett, were able to progress during their lives. I too have had many opportunities to work in careers that I have loved so much, including as Member of Parliament for Bexleyheath and Crayford, and before that, for Erith and Crayford.

Social mobility is about every single person having the opportunity to succeed. It is the link between our starting point in life and where we end up. If where we begin strongly determines where we end up, mobility is low, but if everyone has a good chance of achieving any outcome, regardless of their background, mobility is high, and that is what all of us here want. The Conservative Government are determined to ensure that work is a route out of poverty and into a future where individuals can achieve their ambitions, irrespective of their situation or origin.

Social mobility is one of the key reasons why Britain has been so successful in channelling the talents of all sections of our country, to their own benefit and that of the whole nation. Social mobility is good not just from a moral perspective; it has a huge impact economically. By ensuring talent is harvested from across the whole social spectrum, we can boost productivity and our GDP.

The Social Mobility Commission notes:

“the popular narrative of worsening mobility prospects for young people in the UK is not supported when we take a careful look at a range of outcomes across education and employment.”

That is positive news, because although talent in Britain is spread evenly across the country, regrettably, opportunity is not always. Every individual should have a fair chance of reaching their full potential, so we must ensure that everyone has the opportunity to build a good life for themselves, irrespective of their background.

In the latest “State of the Nation” report from June 2022, almost every gap in the intermediate outcomes between young people from higher and lower socioeconomic backgrounds has narrowed in the past decade. However, there are still disparities, but there has been progress across all measures. Intermediate outcomes in education and work have been trending in a positive direction. Educational attainment gaps between people from higher and lower socioeconomic backgrounds have narrowed, especially at key stages 2 and 4.

The gaps between those from professional and working-class backgrounds for both university participation and degree attainment have also narrowed, although I only have figures from the Sutton Trust, which are rather out of date now. However, there is still a long way to go. On early careers, the gap between people from professional and working-class backgrounds has decreased for most of the occupational and economic outcomes since 2014. However, it is noted that the full effects of the covid-19 pandemic are still unlikely to be shown in any data.

Although positive progress has been made, research undertaken by Professor Steve Strand from the University of Oxford found that there are still vast inequalities in educational achievement at the age of 16. I am particularly concerned about the fact that British white and British black Caribbean male attainment falls well below the average for all students of that age, and scores the lowest across all socioeconomic groups, particularly for the working class.

The variations in attainment are particularly pronounced in the lowest socioeconomic groups, with black Caribbean males achieving an average score of -0.77, and British white males achieving a score of -0.68, compared with Bangladeshi boys achieving a score of 0.07 and those in other Asian male groups scoring -0.11. There are also significant disparities between the attainment of boys and girls in these groups. White British girls and girls of black Caribbean origin score significantly higher across the socioeconomic levels than their male counterparts. Girls from black Caribbean origins from an average socio-economic group scored 0.01, whereas boys scored -0.41. British white girls from the same socioeconomic group scored 0.09, while British white boys scored -0.22.

This data is concerning as educational achievement has such a significant impact on socioeconomic attainment in later life. Our priority must be to create an even playing field, so that everyone has the opportunity to excel and achieve, wherever their ambitions take them. Even before the pandemic started in 2020, there were already many challenges facing our country, but the past three years have added many global challenges outside of the Government’s control—not just the devastating pandemic, but the ongoing war in Europe and the rise in the cost of living. These have all had an impact on social mobility. That is why it is more important than ever that the Government’s levelling-up agenda should remain at the heart of all that we do. The Government have an important role to play—they can lead—but others need to take up the issue and give it support, be they businesses, professions, families or communities.

The covid-19 pandemic was hopefully a once-in-a-generation crisis. It will have an impact on the world’s social mobility for years to come. It was entirely out of the Government’s control. It is important to remember that the historic vaccination programme enabled us to be one of the first western democracies to restore people’s freedoms and open our economy. The Government also delivered more than £400 billion-worth of unprecedented support during the pandemic. It was one of the most generous economic support packages anywhere in the world. It supported more than 14.5 million jobs and provided almost £80 billion in business grants and loans. However, the covid-19 pandemic has impacted particularly harshly on young people from poorer backgrounds. It is likely to have long-term consequences, in education and work, for that cohort. In the short term, we can expect there to be an adverse effect on social mobility, particularly for young people entering the labour market.

It is more important than ever that we provide support that can lift everyone, irrespective of who they are, where they live and where they come from. We cannot accept a country where people have different ladders to climb. People must be encouraged to engage with education and understand its long-term benefits. The recovery programmes that have been introduced, such as the recovery premium and the national tutoring programme, are vital in helping the most disadvantaged. I also welcome the Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill, which is proceeding through Parliament. It will enable people to get education and training throughout their life, so that they can skill and upskill, from school age up to the age of 60. That is a really positive movement.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

Order. A number of Members are trying to get in. If they can limit themselves to roughly five minutes or so each, we should be able to manage that.

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[David Johnston]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have to talk more about this because too often in politics people on the left fear they will demonise parents and on the right they fear they will appear to be the nanny state if they talk about it, but politicians and commentators who say those things are doing exactly the right things for their children. He is absolutely right about the Family Nurse Partnership and a whole range of other things, including family hubs.

The schools system is the easiest lever for politicians to pull, and we have seen huge increases in attainment through academies, free schools and various other initiatives. We have seen London state schools go from being the worst to the best, but we still have parts of the country where the standard of education is not good enough. We have a gender gap in education where girls do better than boys, and an ethnicity gap where certain ethnic groups do better than others, but the biggest gap in education is between children who have free school meals and those who do not. Although we have been making progress—albeit slow—covid has made that situation a lot worse, and has destroyed a lot of the progress we have made. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford says, the national tutoring programme is important, but we have to do more to focus on that.

Let me quickly canter through some other areas. This is about further education colleges and ensuring that the courses they provide will help people in the employment market, which is what we were trying to get to with the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022. When it comes to universities, the success they often trumpet about the percentage of state school students they have masks the fact that a huge proportion of them went to selective state schools—grammar schools—and that the proportion of comprehensive school entry pupils is still low. There is more for them to do, particularly at the most elite universities.

Finally, on professions, Members will have heard me say previously that someone is 24 times more likely to become a doctor if their parent is a doctor; only 6% of doctors are from a working-class background. Again, that is not in the Government’s control. Employers have to do something about that. Some people will say that social mobility is not about people leaving their home area, going to a Russell Group university and getting a middle-class job, but show me someone who says that, and nine times out of 10 they will have done exactly that in their own life. That does not invalidate the point—we need to have both, and to move jobs and investment to those areas—but do not tell me that we should not be trying to get more people into those universities and professions, because they are controlling the country. If we are to get to a position where talent and opportunity is everywhere, everybody has to play their part.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

I have to ask Members to please stick to four minutes now.

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[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett), but I also want to chastise him because he has taken some of my best lines.

I, too, am a product of social mobility. My father was a co-operative milkman and my mother was a cleaner. They both left school at 14, but they were determined to give me the chances that they never had. I was the first in my entire family to go to university in the days when many folk considered educating girls to be just a waste of time—she would only get married and have weans. I did both, and now I am here.

I also taught in further education. I know that times have changed, but social mobility is a real issue. Those in poverty cannot be socially mobile. Those who are hungry cannot learn. When fees are a barrier, many cannot access higher education. That is why children in Scotland are lucky. The Scottish Government take their duties to the next generation seriously, and they have introduced many measures to tackle child poverty. The latest iteration is “Best Start, Bright Futures”, which looks at long-term parental employment support, increased social security and measures to reduce household costs. The recent Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis of Scottish tax and benefit reform found that the lowest-income families in Scotland are significantly better off as a result of the Scottish Government’s tax regime.

Among the poorest 30% of households, those with children will see their incomes boosted by a sizeable £2,000 a year on average, driven by higher benefits for families with children. Perhaps the Minister would consider that in relation to the UK. The Scottish child payment has recently been increased immensely. It is now up to £25 a week—the Scottish Government are providing an extra £2.6 million this year—and it is being extended to children up to the age of 16.

Other small independent countries do much better on social mobility. I am thinking of Nordic countries, such as Denmark. According to OECD figures, it takes two generations to increase social mobility in Denmark, but it takes five generations in the United Kingdom. We must look at that.

I do not want to, and cannot, mention everyone, but the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) caught my attention when he talked about Conservative Members saying that the only way out of poverty is work. That is not the case for those on a zero-hours contract and minimum wage. The living wage, as it is described by the Tory Government, is not enough to live on. That is why many working parents are still getting universal credit. There is something wrong with a system where both parents are working and children, who are our future, will never be able to be socially mobile. They will not know how, because they are being held back by poverty. Will the Minister also look at introducing a minimum support payment for the Child Maintenance Service if parents refuse to pay? I have already spoken to her about this.

Social mobility is important. Social mobility actually works. Social mobility means that we will prosper, right across the UK. Countries, such as Norway, which give their citizens high social benefits, are not poor countries. They make people’s lives better and therefore increase social mobility. I will sit down now, because I am really interested in what the Minister and the Opposition have to say.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (in the Chair)]

I call Alison McGovern, who also has five minutes.