Social Mobility

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Rosindell, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship.

I join others in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing the debate. I also congratulate the members of the all-party group on social mobility who contributed to the report. I apologise that I was not present for the whole of the opening speech; like the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), I was taking part in the debate in the main Chamber. However, I attended the launch of the all-party group’s report a few weeks ago, so I have heard the full presentation, as it were, and taken note of it.

Social mobility is a fascinating subject and one in which I am particularly interested. We have heard so many life stories this afternoon that I almost expected someone—I nearly said Eamonn Andrews, but that would show my age—to appear, holding a red book and saying, “This is your life.” Hearing those stories has been truly fascinating and they have added greatly to the quality of the debate.

My main aim in speaking today is to contribute to the debate one particular thought about our school system, so I will not detain the House long. First, however, so as to avoid disappointing hon. Members and to help to explain my take on social mobility, I will give a quick resumé of where I come from.

Like many who have spoken today, I came from a working-class background. I was born in Cleethorpes, never dreaming that I would eventually become the Member of Parliament for that town. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price), I lived in a two-up, two-down rented property. When my parents were eventually allocated a council house in neighbouring Grimsby, they thought they were moving into Buckingham palace. Interestingly enough, and seemingly contrary to what we have been saying, we are living proof that social mobility does exist. The point, of course, is that it does not exist as widely as we would all like it to.

My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) spoke about the percentage of the new intake of MPs who went to university. That percentage includes me, even though it was the day after my 54th birthday that I graduated. In 1967, when I left Havelock school in Grimsby, there was no thought that I would go to university. My parents had pushed me into accepting—somewhat reluctantly—that I would stay on at school from 15 to 16 and do that extra year. That enabled me to take both CSEs and O-levels, which is interesting in view of the current debate on that subject, which I will return to shortly.

As has been said, in the 1960s and 1970s the opportunities for people to go to university were extremely limited. Not only was there no thought of my going to Oxbridge, but there was no thought of going to university full-stop. I progressed to the Grimsby college of technology, as it was then called, and did a business studies course. Thankfully, I was granted day release by my first employer to help me to do that course. That was the way forward for many people from a background like mine.

The school I attended—Havelock school in Grimsby—was a bilateral school. It had both a grammar stream and a secondary stream under the same roof, and there was movement between the two. I would say that, in reality, it was a perfect comprehensive. I was a borderline case in the 11-plus, as in so many things. My parents were somewhat disappointed, but they managed to secure an interview with the headmaster at Havelock in the hope that I could get into its S-stream—the special stream for borderline cases. Pupils could either stay in that stream or move into the grammar or the secondary stream. Those who were not particularly good at geography, for example, could take a CSE in that subject, but take an O-level in English if they were good at that. That arrangement seems to me the perfect bridge between the competing sides in the argument about grammar schools and two-tier exams. Not only did the school instil discipline—it was a disciplined environment—but it opened pupils’ eyes to opportunities. By present-day standards, the opportunities were limited—there was no real thought of 99% of the pupils going on to university—but the thought was instilled in them that they could progress beyond going to work “down t’dock”, as we said in Grimsby.

To digress for a moment, when we talk about declining education standards, I often wonder whether standards were all that high back then. A great many people in the Grimsby and Cleethorpes area simply went to work down on the docks, in the fishing industry, and down the road in Scunthorpe, the industry was steel. Those industries mopped up an enormous amount of unskilled labour, so the quality of education was never really tested.

Returning to my main theme, I wanted to throw into the argument the possibility of having bilateral schools—of perhaps allowing education authorities to consider that possibility and giving academies the freedom to form themselves into that structure. It is important that we extend social mobility across the board. Everyone needs opportunities, and schools are vital to providing them.