Social Mobility

Lord Choudrey Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Choudrey (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, it is with a sense of honour and humility that I rise to speak in your Lordships’ House for the first time. I would like to place on record my profound gratitude to my sponsors, my noble friends Lady Evans of Bowes Park and Lord Marland, for all their help and encouragement. I would also like to thank your Lordships and all the staff here—especially the doorkeepers—for the warm welcome that I have received.

I confess to a degree of trepidation in participating in this debate on social mobility, which has characterised my own life and matters to me personally. Hailing from a small farming village in Pakistan, my father, a Second World War veteran, moved to the UK in the hope of better fortunes. I joined him aged 12 specifically to attain the social mobility that was lacking in our motherland. Our move to the UK provided us with access to education, healthcare and work opportunities.

After five decades in the UK, and a great deal of hard work and perseverance, I stand before you today as the CEO of one of the UK’s largest family-owned businesses. We are a socially responsible business that has always given back to the communities in which we operate. We have provided vital support to local hospitals and helped transform inner-city schools across the UK. Our businesses have invested in economically deprived parts of the country, created jobs and invested in training programmes for staff and customers.

Social mobility is a complex and multi-faceted issue. However, in my opinion, education, healthcare and fair work opportunities are the key levers that need to be addressed to tackle it, with clear links between education and tangible work opportunities. Although the findings of the Social Mobility Commission’s report paint a bleak picture, I am confident that these issues are solvable, and this Government have already announced policy initiatives to address them.

The current Government are quite correctly channelling greater resources towards regional economies, particularly the Midlands and the north-east, which are primed to be engines of growth and job opportunities. An ambitious domestic reform agenda for healthcare has been put in place, with the NHS receiving a multi-year funding settlement last year. School funding is set to increase by £14 billion, with historically underfunded areas receiving the greatest increase. A new national skills fund worth £3 billion has also been announced.

This Government have been given a historic mandate by some of the most economically deprived parts of the country. They will target their efforts and resources at the people and places that need them the most. These policy measures are no panacea in themselves, as social mobility cannot be tackled by the state alone. All stakeholders, including schools, LEAs, businesses and civil society, need to work together in harmony to achieve this objective.

I thank your Lordships for giving me the opportunity to participate in this important debate.