Regional Accents and Social Mobility

Mims Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Mims Davies (East Grinstead and Uckfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to listen to and take part in this debate on behalf of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) on securing the debate and on her personal, informative and engaging speech. I had the pleasure of welcoming the Youth Parliament to my county last year, and I was delighted to hear from all those young people from across the country; it was a pleasure to listen to them. The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) mentioned her pronunciation of “tooth”; I was born on the “two-th” of June—I had to continually be corrected on that one.

I must declare an interest, as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for youth employment. I have the pleasure of working with Youth Employment UK on promoting youth employment in all its forms, the role of young people in the economy and ensuring that young people’s voices are heard. I also co-chair the APPG on men and boys’ issues, and it is a pleasure to work with the Centre for Policy Research on Men and Boys in that role on improving the wellbeing, opportunities and life chances of our boys. I think it is clear that this is one of the things that drives me in politics.

As we have rightly heard today, a regional accent must never be seen as a badge of shame, and I will come on to talk about my mother’s experience of that. Every single one of our regional accents—from the north-east to the south-west, the Welsh valleys to the highlands of Scotland, Merseyside through to the Black Country and down to the Thames estuary—is a reminder of the people and places that make this country so special, and that is why we have enjoyed this debate so much.

After 10 years of living and working in Wales, I have had a very messy accent. In my county of Sussex, our native accent has largely been replaced, except for a few old place names and words—for example, a twitten is an alley—due to the rise of mass education and accent correction in favour of perceived “better” pronunciation. Otherwise, I would be speaking more akin to the west country accent and using the rhotic “r”. That was an accent that my dad had, as a Sussex farmer, and that two Cornish people in my office would recognise.

My dad married my mum, who was from Stoke and had elocution lessons at grammar school, where she had to wear a boater, not eat in the street and most certainly not chew gum in the street. When she took dad to football, most people presumed she was in the wrong end, watching the wrong team. Pride in where she came from was undermined by the fact that her accent as a youngster was deemed to need to be ironed out, as the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) said.

I had the pleasure of serving as a Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions for over five years, and a title I fought for and had the honour of holding was Minister for Social Mobility. I know there is a huge amount of talent in every part of Britain, which is why I care so much about ensuring that everybody has a chance to succeed, no matter where they come from, their postcode or, of course, their accent.

I would like to share are a couple of things from my time as a Minister. My very Liverpudlian private office lead had about 15 different ways of saying no to many of my bright ideas, which I learnt meant how much she liked them. At the DWP, we created 140 youth hubs, which I am delighted this Government are taking forward, and Members have highlighted the importance of young people’s confidence. In creating those youth hubs, we learned from the Birmingham model, under the leadership of another well-known and very well thought of former mayor, Andy Street. Manchesterism is now extremely fashionable, and I think we are all delighted to highlight the fact that there is so much talent and ability across the country.

The DWP is unique in the fact that it is in every single community, and our second headquarters was in Leeds. One thing I found during my time working with the amazing civil service was that too many people cannot progress in that Department or more widely, because if they do not have the ability to get to London or be supported there, and perhaps if they do not have the right accent, they do not get the social mobility and the opportunities they need to progress. I worked with the care leavers in our Department and really listened to and learned from them. I hope that that is continuing, as I know this is a focus for the Government.

Hon. Members have rightly spoken passionately, in their wonderful accents, about their constituencies. The hon. Members for York Outer (Mr Charters) and for Leigh and Atherton spoke about the BBC accent. When I, a former Croydon schoolgirl, worked at the BBC, they briefly tried to train my accent out of me. Again, that was about softening an accent, or perhaps it was about improving it—we need to read between those lines. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—good luck to Hansard on capturing all the magical recollections that he shared—shows off his magnificent accent. Once we have had time to tune in, frankly, we never get a chance to tune out. It was lovely to hear about learning phrases across generations; when we hold on to our past, our family and our area, it really makes a difference.

Research has found that when interview candidates demonstrate technical knowledge or speak confidently, they are subject to less accent-based differential treatment. It is important to challenge the Government on the fact that they are lowering their ambitions around vocational qualifications and moving away from high standards and specialist knowledge—I leave that with the Minister to think about.

My party is very much about meritocracy. We should be raising people up, and giving our young people the best start and the skills and knowledge they need to succeed, instead of lowering expectations and pushing them down to the bottom. That has been highlighted in speeches today. As I have said before in the House, you will do great when you are your true, authentic self—that will serve you. Confidence in being ourselves is everything we need.

The Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), has rightly said:

“diversity and inclusion should never put any individual or group at a disadvantage, and should never damage cohesion and morale in the workplace”,

and that anti-discrimination should not be

“used as a mechanism to undermine meritocracy”.

That is the nub of what we are talking about today. What is the point in pushing for us all to be the same? As the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Sureena Brackenridge) said, this is not about conformity. We might have different approaches to this issue, but the challenge is there for us all, and we need to find a way to fix it.

We need to insist on not seeing people as victims who need saving. We need to see people as talented individuals with agency, or we risk reinforcing stereotypes and pulling up the social mobility ladder. The new legal duties may sometimes make us politicians feel good about ourselves, but all too often the outcomes fail to live up to the talk. That, again, has been highlighted today. As the public sector equality duty shows, such duties can lead to more harm being done in the name of equality. We need to recognise that.

The ongoing obsession with putting people into boxes and categorising them according to their characteristics is not the answer, as I think we all agree. It leads only to more division when, frankly, we need less. Instead, we should be celebrating achievement, holding up examples of excellence and promoting role models in every walk of life.

In the age of social media influencers, a man named Wilfred Pickles is a somewhat unlikely role model, but his reading of the news on BBC radio during the war, in his broad Yorkshire accent, broke barriers and redefined the idea of who could be on a national broadcaster. Young people today, no matter where they are from, should feel confident that their accent will never be a barrier to them reaching their potential. That will be possible only if we build a society that is focused on individual merit and access to opportunity for all, rather than group characteristics and tick-box exercises.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister. Will she commit to a full assessment of the implementation of the socioeconomic duty in Scotland and Wales, and can she update us on what conversations she has had about it with the devolved Administrations? What impact does the Minister think devolution has had on promoting social mobility in the regions and nations? I certainly have my views on that, and I am interested in the those of the Minister.

Conservative Members believe people should have the opportunity to succeed in life regardless of background or accent with the opportunity to go as far as their talent and hard work takes them. We should never judge people solely on protected characteristics or limit their chances and ambition based on where they are from. I agree with the hon. Member for Leigh and Atherton: it is not about how we speak but how we listen and, crucially, act to make a difference in social mobility and open the doors for others.