Social Mobility

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Michelle Donelan)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett) on securing this important debate on social mobility, the issue which inspired me to enter politics—to enable others to get on. Social mobility is a top priority for this Government and a challenge that requires action across the whole of society and Government. My right hon. Friend is right that the Government must play a key role in improving opportunities across our country.

My right hon. Friend highlighted the important role of the Social Mobility Commission. I want to reassure hon. Members that I regularly meet the chair of the commission to discuss where we can effectively work closely together on our shared agenda. I vehemently believe that education is the key to expanding opportunities and everybody has the right to a good education. As my right hon. Friend said, while education has the power to grow skills and knowledge, it is also about fostering self-belief and expanding horizons. It really is the key to social mobility.

Improving this country’s education system starts in the early years. Giving all young people the best start in life is a top priority for this Government. We are committed to improving access to early education and supporting parents to improve their child’s outcome. Hungry Little Minds is a three-year campaign to encourage parents to chat to their children, play with them and read to them, and to help them be ready for school and life. The other week I visited the Wirral, where I saw how different sectors of the community—businesses and charities—have got involved in that campaign.

Schools are essential ladders of opportunity, as my right hon. Friend noted when he quoted the statistics showing the success of the current reforms. We have focused our attention on raising standards, because all children, wherever they live, deserve high standards of education, which are the best way to allow young people to make the most of their potential. My right hon. Friend will know that this has done much to improve the academic improvement and wider educational outcomes of pupils from financially disadvantaged backgrounds.

We provide additional funding through the pupil premium. Since 2011, we have distributed over £17 billion in pupil premium funding. Through the groundbreaking work of the Education Endowment Foundation, schools can now freely access a growing body of high-quality evidence on what really works, so they can make informed decisions about how best to spend that money effectively. We will continue to support all groups that are held back and ensure that schools can address the needs of each individual pupil. That is why we have injected so much more money into our education system recently.

My right hon. Friend mentioned social mobility hotspots. While we are working to improve the life chances of disadvantaged pupils everywhere, we recognise that some parts of the country face particularly significant challenges. We have used the Social Mobility Commission’s 2016 social mobility index and the data from the Department for Education on school capacity and performance to select 12 areas for targeted initiatives. Those 12 opportunity areas are a mix of coastal, urban and rural areas across the country. The commission’s report on the state of the nation, which has been referenced several times, recognised the important work of opportunity areas for levelling up society, especially in deprived parts of the country. We were, therefore, delighted to announce a one-year £18 million extension to the programme last October, bringing the total funds to £90 million. Additionally, we are working with leaders from education, local government and business, and we are investing up to £24 million through Opportunity North East.

My right hon. Friend made an important point about the need of young people to access a range of activities, inside and outside the classroom. In 2017-19, we invested £22 million in an essential life skills programme to help engage disadvantaged young children in extracurricular activities, to develop confidence in leadership and support life skills critical to raising their aspirations. Last year, we published guidance to help schools to improve character education and the personal development of their pupils.

[Justin Madders]

Several hon. Members mentioned the World Economic Forum rankings. Do the Government want to set a target to improve our position in those rankings, and if so, over what time period?

[Michelle Donelan]

We have not yet set a target. I think the aspiration should be that the sky is the limit. This is an extremely important debate that, unfortunately, we did not have enough time for today. It is the key priority of this Government to level up society across the country and ensure that every child and young person has the opportunities they deserve.

Going back to the point I was dealing with on, I wanted to say that it linked with the points made by the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), who talked about the role of the voluntary sector in levelling up society. Further education is a great driver of social mobility, and we are reviewing qualifications to ensure that our reforms in that sector help all students. We will provide £3 million in extra funding to pupil premium plus, on top of the additional investment we have made in the further education sector.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) that high-quality apprenticeships are essential to social mobility. That is something that we all recognise, and something that we debated in this Chamber yesterday. We want to ensure that people from all backgrounds can access the benefits of an apprenticeship, and our Opportunities Through Apprenticeships project was specifically targeted at helping disadvantaged young people. That is something that I am looking at, to ensure it is an even playing field.

Higher education has been referenced, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott). I agree with her, but I stress that higher education is not the only route for social mobility. However, our reforms, including the establishment of the Office for Students, open access to higher education. They are about bringing in greater competition and choice and promoting higher-quality education for all. I take her point about it depending on the type of institution that young people get into, and that is something we have specifically been targeting over recent years. The figures have demonstrated success: in 2019, 18-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds were 62% more likely to enter full-time higher education.

Finally, turning to the world of work, I share the concern of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford that privately educated individuals continue to be over-represented in professional occupations. That is something we have tried to target through our career education reforms. We have made great strides in recent years to improve careers advice for young people based on the Gatsby benchmarks. Through the Careers & Enterprise Company, we have established 40 career hubs. The latest state of the nation report concluded that schools and colleges have improved in every aspect of their career provision, with some of the most disadvantaged communities among the highest performers.

In conclusion, and to allow my right hon. Friend a moment to sum up, I thank him for calling this important and crucial debate, which has rightly ranged across the actions that we are taking to spread opportunities at all stages of a young person’s life. The Government and I are committed to providing all young people with the tools that they need to reach their full potential and access the opportunities that they deserve.