Financial Education in Schools

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Angela.

I am delighted to be here this morning. I declare an interest as a vice-chair, since 2015, of the all-party parliamentary group on financial education for young people. I sometimes feel a bit of a fraud when I talk about financial education and financial matters. I was married for 47 years to a senior tax manager in a firm of international accountants and we were terrible at handling money. That was very much down to my late husband’s philosophy, which was, “Don’t worry about money. It only matters when somebody owes you and you’re not getting it.” I can now say this in public because, as many Members will know, my husband died five years ago.

I grew up in a poor family, and I identify with the point that the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) made about jars. That was how my mammy managed money. It is not how my children manage money, and it is not how I do it now.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew), the chair of the APPG, on his good work and on getting the debate today. It is one of those debates in Westminster Hall about which we can think, “9.30 on a Tuesday morning and a late night—oh my goodness,” even though I am passionate about the subject. However, every contributor so far has touched on different aspects and the debate has been really well rounded. I may now not live up to expectations! I thank the Centre for Social Justice, which sent me a briefing, and the Money and Pensions Service for its briefing.

As many Members know, education is devolved in Scotland. We have already incorporated financial education into both the primary and the secondary school curriculums, and we have taken a lead in embedding money management in other aspects of the curriculum. I say this a lot: we do some things differently in Scotland and sometimes that is better. Rather than looking “abroad abroad”, perhaps the Government could look at what is being done in Scotland and learn from it. It is a lot cheaper to travel there and it is much easier to talk to folk in Scotland, although we may have a slightly different accent and sometimes our English is not always so intelligible.

Strong financial education is increasingly important in a financial crisis. It is important that people—especially young people, for all the reasons Members have given—have a sound financial backing. I know that many people are suffering. Much of my constituency is in areas of multiple deprivation, and money really matters. It is so important that our constituents know how to manage money better. We all—not just our constituents—need to know how to manage money and use it to best effect. It is very difficult for young people in some areas to understand how money works, because of digital money. I am very fortunate that two of my granddaughters have GoHenry cards that they understand and use, but I know that many of my constituents have never heard of things like that. They do not understand what is happening and, where there is no access to cash, they are really struggling. It is such a trigger.

The hon. Member for Broadland talked about the mental health aspects of bad financial management and how, if people get themselves into a debt spiral, it becomes more and more difficult to get out. Although there are good local services—in my own constituency, the local council has a tackling poverty team—those in debt sometimes cannot see any way out. It is really important that we give people the tools for now and for the future to enable them to manage money wisely.

It is also very important that people understand the consequences of spending. When I was a further education lecturer at West Lothian College—a number of years ago, it has to be said—I was absolutely appalled at how little my students, who ranged in age from 16 to 60, knew about money management. They had not even heard of things like annual percentage rates. They did not understand the huge amount more that they had to pay because they were buying things on credit and that, if they were able to save, they could have got them much cheaper. That is still the case for many of our poorest people in society. There is a poverty premium. People pay more for accessing services and paying for energy simply because they are poor. We have talked about how we are moving to digital money: so many people are digitally excluded right across the UK, so they are doubly impacted.

Pennies and pounds are lost through misspending. The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge said that it is another latte; that is a real thing because young people nowadays almost no longer have the ability to save money and earn more. Furthermore, when they come out of university in England—I have to make this point—they are seriously in debt. Students in Scotland come out of university and college in debt as well but not by nearly as much because tertiary education is free in Scotland.

It is vital not only that we put financial education on the curriculum but that it is properly delivered. I want to pay real tribute to MyBnk and to Young Enterprise, mentioned by the hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter). My children also benefited from that kind of thing. In our case, the house smelled of potpourri for years afterwards. It is important that we do all of this. Many external partners do really good work, and teachers would not necessarily inevitably have to take on a further burden. I went to visit MyBnk in its flat in Glasgow. It does great work with care leavers, which the APPG has looked at in the past. They leave care with absolutely no one to help them. It is slightly different now as the age for care support has been increased. I know in Scotland it is 25; I think it has been increased here, too. We need to help those people in that huge area.

I know that I am going slightly off brief, but it is really important that we not just educate young people but reach out and show them—as an organisation, as Parliament—the consequences of the mismanagement of cash. I do not want to see any other generation growing up without understanding where money comes from, how important it is to manage it properly and how important savings are. I now know that. I have learned through bitter experience how important it is.

It is also about making sure that the future is better for all our people. However, it has to be said that there are swathes of the population—here I stray slightly into my disabilities portfolio—for whom it is absolutely impossible to save. They have to juggle money every day to make it stretch as far as they can, and no matter how much work we do here, that will always be the case. That is another seriously good reason why people need financial education for when they find themselves facing a change of life, because it can happen to any of us. I lived for many years from one salary to the next. There was nothing behind. If either I or my husband fell ill or had to give up work, there was no cushion. We have to have financial education so that we can provide cushions for people and so that they can find them when times are tough. As a Government and a Parliament, we also need to provide a sound financial base for those who cannot work and who will therefore still need financial education to enable them to live well.