Social Mobility

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett). Is it not good that another further education lecturer is responding for the Scottish National party? We both know the importance of further education and how it helps to increase social mobility.

The latest state of the nation report says that

“social mobility has stagnated over the last four years at virtually all stages from birth to work”,

which is an utterly shocking indictment of the UK Government. It highlights the way in which inequality is entrenched in Britain, with someone born privileged likely to remain privileged, while someone born disadvantaged may have to overcome barriers to improve their and their children’s social mobility. Urgent action needs to be taken to close the privilege gap. The report also praised the Scottish Government for making Scotland

“more socially mobile, as a person’s occupation is now less determined by the occupation of one’s parents”,

and for

“giving consideration to improving social mobility by introducing a duty on public bodies to reduce socio-economic disadvantage”,

which we do not have in the rest of the UK.

I, too, am socially mobile. My dad was a corporation milkman and my mother was a cleaner. I was the first in my whole family to go to university, in 1967. A lot of what happened to me was because of my parents’ belief in education and the fact that their children should get the chances that they did not. However, it was also because they worked hard, and got the rewards of working hard, in a way that families nowadays do not. We hear so much about work being the best way out of poverty. That is not entirely true—not for someone in the gig economy on what is not, in fact, a living wage. Most people on benefits are in working families, and there are children in poverty across the United Kingdom in families in which both parents work. This scandal should not escape us, and we should do everything we can to end it. The Scottish Government are working to help Scottish families—the Scottish child payment is about to come on board—but only 16% of social security is devolved to Scotland, so they cannot do everything that they would like. Children are the start; and if we give children across the UK the best possible start, social mobility should follow.

Education has been mentioned. As I said, I was educated and became socially mobile. I was economically inactive for a number of years—I had three children—but was able to go back into the workforce at a far higher level. If we educate women especially, we educate generations after them. That is an absolute fact, and I stand here as proof of it. The SNP Government have invested record amounts in schools, to close the poverty-related attainment gap. Hon. Members should not listen to everything said against education in Scotland. It is improving. I know from my experience in further education that giving money helps, but it is also about the commitment of the people who work in education.

The Scottish Government have a uniform fund, enabling children to go to school and be like their peers. A child who goes to school and is like their peers will learn better, learn more and will feel able to progress. The Scottish Government have also expanded the education maintenance allowance in Scotland, but it has been scrapped here. We have to ask why, given that it is socially advantageous to give children from poorer backgrounds money to allow them to stay at school and increase their educational abilities.

I absolutely agree with the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott). Yes, going to a good university is really important, which is why places like St Andrews, one of the leading UK universities, actively encourages children, and is actively encouraged by the Scottish Government—

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but because we are very close to time, Opposition spokespeople should only have five minutes. You have exceeded that, so I am sure that you are about to bring your speech to a close.

[Marion Fellows]

I was indeed. Will the Minister tell us whether her Government will follow the Scottish Government and commit to a socioeconomic duty in England and Wales, and whether they will look at steps that the Scottish Government have already taken to increase social mobility?