Social Mobility

Debate between Mark Pritchard and Paul Masterton

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. A phone just went off. Can people keep their phones on mute or vibrate?

[Paul Masterton]

I am aware of that, but some of the things the Scottish Government consider to be positive destinations are things that most people would not consider to be so.

The Government are getting on with some of those things, but we need to be imaginative in our responses. We know that two children with parents on the same income and with the same educational qualifications will experience different levels of social mobility depending on their surroundings. A person is more likely to be upwardly mobile if they live in a mixed socioeconomic neighbourhood, so how do we create policies that bring different parts of the community together and expose our children to people with different views, values and backgrounds?

More and more people are working atypical hours, which often conflict with the opening hours of essential public services. If someone does not have a network to fall back on or someone to pick their kids up from school, they are more likely to drop out of the jobs market. If someone struggles to get a doctor’s appointment around their working hours, they are much less likely to get early help for a health problem.

As well as social mobility, we need to talk about social exclusion, because the latter is hugely detrimental to the former. Of course, a huge driver of social mobility is earning power and the confidence and self-reliance that comes from being in work. Conservative action to support a modern industrial strategy, invest in infrastructure, provide city deals for places such as the Glasgow city region, and cut taxes for small businesses, corporations and families alike, is helping to drive employment growth. We have more jobs and record employment. More low-paid are out of taxation, and the national living wage has been introduced. Those things really matter, because they broaden opportunity, deliver jobs and improve future generations’ life chances.

It is true that in-work poverty is too high in Scotland and the rest of the UK. There are UK-wide levers, such as tax and benefits policy and the national minimum wage, but the agenda can be set at a more regional level, both by the devolved Administrations—particularly Scotland, if there are further transfers of tax and social security powers—and by local councils. That should not be overlooked. Regional economic development can drive up wages and increase the demand for employees to work more hours. Skills development can help workers move into better-paid jobs, and a focus on economic diversification can aid unsatisfied workers change industry. For example, the underemployed—people who would like more hours but cannot get them—are more likely to work in fluid sectors such as hospitality and retail. That all helps to motor social mobility, and it must continue to form the cornerstone of the policy agenda. The Taylor report provides a fantastic opportunity for the Government to revisit many of the structural issues in the modern world of work, and to adapt and create policy that takes the new landscape into account.

Although education is devolved, there are things that we can learn from each other on both sides of the border. I believe that a good education is the single biggest social mobility tool we can provide. Much of the education debate centres on higher education and tuition fees, so I was pleased that the hon. Member for Manchester Central focused more on early years, because that is key. Many people have been dealt their cards for life by the time long before they fill in their UCAS form, so if we are serious about social mobility, funding has to be ploughed into early years. It is about not just increasing hours for three and four-year-olds, which most parents cannot access anyway—the Governments in Westminster and Edinburgh appear to be in an arms race to do that—but investing in high-quality childcare.

The Scottish Conservatives have a distinct voice and get it right on that issue. We say, first, that before increasing hours for three and four-year-olds, we need to extend the current allowance to two-year-olds and more disadvantaged one-year-olds; and, secondly, that we need to ensure that funding is used to train up a more highly qualified professional workforce. Early years education and childcare need to have a real purpose of intent. We must develop literacy and numeracy, which are dropping very quickly in Scottish schools, as well as social skills, to narrow the divide that is currently so wide as to be almost irrecoverable by the time our kids walk through the primary school gates. We must bridge the gap between the point maternity leave ends and free childcare provision begins. We need to understand that the driver of social mobility is in those crucial early years, when the attainment gap takes root.

Students from the most advantaged areas are four times more likely to go to university than those from the least advantaged areas in Scotland—it three times more likely in Wales and Northern Ireland, which is lower but still high, and two and a half times more likely in England. That starts right back in nursery. In Scotland, the gap in attainment can start as early 18 months.

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[Paul Masterton]

The hon. Lady makes me think of the number of graduates not going into graduate-entry jobs, which the hon. Member for Manchester Central mentioned earlier. Partly that is because of the exponential rise in the number of graduates, and because the UK jobs market has not kept pace with it. That brings us to the wider issue of whether there are a lot of people going to university whose future potential would be best tapped into through another route.

Kids learn differently, so we need to allow them to be taught differently. They have different skillsets, so we need to have an education system that allows all of those skillsets to be nurtured and developed. Ultimately, kids have different aspirations and goals and we need to ensure that we have guidance and routes in place to help every child get to where they want to be, rather than being funnelled automatically through to university education as a default, which is what happens in a lot of schools.

Many have said in the past that poverty is a cost that the UK cannot afford. They are right. We need to move from treating the symptoms of poverty to treating its underlying and fundamental causes. The commission, which is a few years old now, found that £4 in every £10 was spent on dealing with the causes of poverty after they had occurred, not on preventing them. That simply wastes bad money.

The Government have a great story to tell, but people are ultimately more than numbers on a spreadsheet or plots on a graph. Social mobility and the effectiveness of the Government’s policies are measured just as much in how people feel their lives are going on the ground. Far too many people feel let down and passed by. It is simply not okay for the UK to be a country where it is still better to be rich and a bit dim than poor and clever.

What was so important about the Prime Minister’s first speech outside No. 10 was that, like David Cameron’s life chances agenda, it understood that, although income is crucial, we will not get rid of poverty and improve social mobility by lifting income levels alone. We have to deal with some of the underlying causes, which means that too many people simply do not get a fair shot.

It is absolutely vital that, whatever else might be going on, the Government go back to the speech and put it at the heart of everything they do. If they can do that, they can truly tackle the potential sapping prejudices people face every day and make a real push on social mobility.

[Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)]

Order. There are five speakers. I shall impose a time limit of three minutes because of the amount of interest in this debate, and because we have to allow time for the Front Benchers to wind up.