Social Mobility

Lord Willetts Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

Thank you, Mr Leigh, for protecting the Government’s interests by giving me an opportunity to respond to the large number of extremely pertinent questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey). We all know how committed she personally is to the cause of social mobility. I have read the accounts of “If Chloe Can”, and clearly that is exactly the type of initiative that is needed to raise aspirations and for young people to know what they can achieve regardless of their background, and I congratulate her on that.

I also welcome the interventions from my hon. Friends. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) is the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on social mobility, and it is great to see him present in the Chamber. My hon. Friends the Members for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) also made important interventions. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole suggested the exciting sub-heading of “Workhouse to Westminster”—it is good to see that the Minister responsible for the workhouse, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), has just arrived in the Chamber. “Workhouse to Westminster” is the motif for our debate today.

The challenge that we have in improving social mobility, which my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West painted vividly, is one that the coalition is committed to addressing. Probably the most important single document in which we have set out our policies is “Opening Doors, Breaking Barriers: A Strategy for Social Mobility”, which was published last April. It had the important feature of tackling all the different stages of a life cycle, and it showed that at each stage, we had to raise our performance. We have already heard, from the interventions, about the importance of the early years, and we recognise that. That is why we are committed to a new entitlement of 15 hours a week of free early education for two-year-olds, in order to try to tackle the problem in that area.

Coming to school years, the coalition is delivering the pupil premium, which for next year will be worth £600 a year for pupils from tougher backgrounds. The excellent free schools policy is already working, with new free schools being set up. Rising to my hon. Friend’s specific challenge of communication, we also have “Speakers for Schools” and a related programme, “Inspiring Futures”, which aim to get 100,000 people into schools and colleges to talk about their jobs and career routes. The challenge is not just about aspiration—sometimes people have the aspiration, but they do not know how to fulfil their aspiration or understand the routes to get from where they are to what they want to be. Having people who have taken a route through to achieving their ambition in a certain career arrive in a school or college to describe it with practical examples is important to tackle the communication challenge that she identified.

I recognise that universities, which are my particular responsibility, are only one of the routes into a well-paid job, a career and a fulfilling life. It is equally important that people have the opportunity of apprenticeships, which is why the coalition is delivering 100,000 extra apprenticeships. We have achieved that in our first year, and with the excellent leadership of my colleague, the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), we are ahead of that target; we will deliver even more.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West asked about universities. One of the encouraging things about universities is that whereas in the earlier stages of the education process, people from disadvantaged backgrounds, sadly, fall further and further behind, getting to university is the first stage of the process in which it looks as if—the evidence is controversial, but I think the majority of evidence is pretty clear on this—young people from more disadvantaged backgrounds over-achieve compared with others. It is the first stage in which instead of falling further behind, they start catching up. That is why it is important that we do everything we can to ensure access to university, which the coalition is committed to.

Although the decision to go to university or not has to be for an individual, and we want more information for young people as they make their choice, so that they can decide whether going is the right thing for them, nevertheless, I offer to my hon. Friend some figures: on average, graduates earn £32,000 a year, while on average, non-graduates earn £19,000 a year. The averages are pretty compelling.

My hon. Friend referred particularly to science and asked me what we could do on that. There is an excellent initiative of STEMNET ambassadors. These are people who have made practical careers in the sciences, who may have built up a business or may be working as scientists. There are 28,000 of them, 40% of whom are women; it is important to get the gender mix. Again, they go around to schools, science fairs and elsewhere to explain what they have achieved as engineers, scientists or managers, drawing on their expertise and communicating it to young people.

There was an intervention particularly about disabled people. While we sometimes focus exclusively on social background and access to university, we have made it clear in the letters that we have sent to the Office for Fair Access that it should look at other things as well. One that we specifically identified is proper arrangements for disabled students, so that they have an opportunity to learn and do not suffer from excessive drop-out rates.

My hon. Friend also talked about other examples of what could be achieved. She was right to refer to the Speaker’s parliamentary placement scheme. It is important that people have a fair opportunity of internships. We are clear that if young people are in employment, they should be properly paid for it. The Government attach a lot of importance to that.

As well as the Speaker’s parliamentary placement scheme, we should also remember—I suspect that this also applies to several Members present—the Social Mobility Foundation, which also finances people to come to work in the House of Commons if they would not otherwise have been able to afford to do so.

The lesson that the coalition takes from the debate is that yes, we need to intervene at every stage of the life cycle: early years, school, apprenticeships, university and opportunities afterwards. However, nothing beats the personal experience of seeing people who have overcome barriers. What my hon. Friend describes and promotes, not least through the excellent play to which she referred earlier, is fundamental to providing young people with opportunities. I very much support and welcome the efforts that she is personally making.