Educational Opportunities: Working Classes

Lord Bates Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates (Con)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, for securing this debate and for the way in which she introduced it. I absolutely agree that education is the most powerful lever for change, but I did not always appreciate that. I grew up in Gateshead, when it was one of the poorest communities in the country. I attended a typical inner-city comprehensive school, where our most famous alumnus was Paul Gascoigne. The only remarkable thing about my O-level grades was that they spelled out “FUDGE” when I got them.

In later life, however, with the encouragement of my noble friend Lord Baker, the then Secretary of State, and the inspirational local businessman Sir Peter Vardy, I was part of a team that founded a city technology college in Gateshead. Over the past 30 years, it has transformed the academic opportunities of more than 10,000 children from working-class backgrounds. It did this by raising expectations among students and parents. The school instilled in students personal pride and self-belief, along with beliefs in self-discipline and ambition. Later in life, I was to have the opportunity of graduating from Oxford University as a mature student. What has all this taught me about the subject before us?

There are a few things. I am absolutely convinced that education is the surest path out of poverty ever discovered. I believe that investment in the early years of a child’s life will yield the greatest socioeconomic return it is possible to get. I believe in the dignity of hard work, and in celebrating excellence wherever it is found: in academia, the arts, sport, public service or enterprise. I believe in levelling up, not levelling down, and that the person who has the greatest responsibility for achieving your life goals is you. I failed my O-levels not because the system failed me but because I did not put in the work necessary to pass them. I believe that people born anywhere in the United Kingdom have won the biggest prize in the lottery of life. It is, without doubt, the best country to grow up in. I believe it offers some of the best schools and universities, and the best opportunities available anywhere in the world at this time. The British education system is the most admired in the world, judging by the fact that last year the UK overtook the United States as the number one destination for foreign students.

Over the past six years, we have seen the proportion of children achieving good development by the age of five rise from 55% to 74%. I am proud that the number of people being taught in good or outstanding schools has increased by over 2 million since 2010; this will pay dividends in future. I am pleased that the proportion of children who were on free school meals entering higher education in England has increased every single year since 2005. I am pleased that the scourge of mass unemployment, which I knew in my youth, has given way to the highest employment levels in our history and some of the lowest unemployment rates for 50 years. I am proud that we now have the lowest ever number of low-paid jobs, as a proportion of the working population.

The message I would send from places such as this to the working-class communities from which I hail is: you are special; there are opportunities open to you today which are unparalleled in our history; you have incredible potential; and it matters not where you start but where you finish. Be inspired, work hard, aim high and persevere. Above all, when you get there remember to invest back in the lives of the young, so that they might grow taller than we did.