Social Mobility and the Economy

Stephanie Peacock Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and to follow the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (David Evennett), who made a powerful speech. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) on securing this important debate on social mobility and the economy. She made a passionate and practical speech.

People in my community too often feel like social mobility no longer applies to them. I am told time and again by my constituents during my surgeries and on the doorsteps of Barnsley East that the economy is not working for them, and that they are being held back. It is difficult to disagree or to reassure them because they are not entirely wrong. In my constituency and across Barnsley, someone’s postcode still to this day determines their life chances and what they can, or rather cannot, become.

The Social Mobility Foundation has identified that Barnsley sits in the bottom 10% of local authorities in the country on the social mobility index. I am sure that, through her experience of growing up in nearby Rotherham, the right hon. Member for Putney knows the area well, and is at least familiar with the challenges it faces. She will also know that she remains in the minority for those born and raised in south Yorkshire. To put it simply, starting from childhood, life chances in Barnsley are far below those provided elsewhere. As many hon. Members have said, that must change.

A huge percentage of children in Barnsley’s classrooms are eligible for free school meals and come from disadvantaged backgrounds, but fewer than 10% of those children will go on to study at university—one of the lowest rates in the country. That is put into perspective, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) outlined, when compared with, for instance, the 50% of disadvantaged children in Kensington and Chelsea who will go on to higher education. Despite those struggles, Barnsley’s schools have fewer resources to progress.

Once past those struggles in childhood, the economy lags in providing the opportunities for people to get on in life. The mining industry, which helped to shape our community, once provided employment for more than 30,000 people. Although the work was hard and often dangerous, it was secure and well paid. The economic landscape is different now. The largest private sector employers in my constituency are in distribution. Both unemployment and youth unemployment are substantially higher than the national average. The average weekly wage in Barnsley East is a full 10% lower than the UK average. Across the area, many people are trapped in insecure and precarious employment, on short-term or flexible contracts. There is less certainty of work, no guaranteed income, no planning past the next week’s rota, which may change at the last minute, and no economic security to provide food or pay the bills. Such an economy is not conducive to social mobility.

For social mobility in Barnsley, and my constituency of Barnsley East, we desperately need an inclusive economy that provides the security of wages, and the opportunities that people have missed out on for too long. We need secure, long-term employment with a guaranteed income that allows people to plan, save and look further than the next pay packet. Most of all, we need an economy that works for people in Barnsley, that allows workers to advance and progress; that allows children to aspire and achieve; and that provides the opportunities and conditions for genuine social mobility, which has evaded our community for too long.

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[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I warmly congratulate the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) on an excellent speech. It is clear from her time as Secretary of State for Education that she had a desire to advance social mobility, and it is shame that she is no longer in that position.

When I saw this debate on the Order Paper, I welcomed the opportunity to take part in it. I am conscious that, as somebody who was born to a single parent, and who grew up on a council estate in Glasgow and left school at 16, I am probably the exception to the rule in terms of having got to the House of Commons, given my class and the people I went to school with. I grew up in the shadow of the Cranhill water tower, and I now work in the shadow of Big Ben. It is important that we have come to speak in this debate, and that we do not pull the ladder up behind us.

I do not want to get into an egg-throwing match on education with my colleagues from Scotland in the Conservative party, because I think it has been a constructive debate. We can do more on education. My wife is a primary schoolteacher, so it is not an alien concept to me. I am disappointed that the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) did not mention that the Scottish Government are investing in the pupil equity fund. I see that in my constituency, with organisations such as Beacon Warriors and Licketyspit doing work in schools. As I say, I do not want to make that a party political point.

One area that I will focus on today is internships, but before I do, I will address the issue of apprenticeships. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), who is a fellow former modern apprentice. It is important that we put more emphasis in this place on modern apprenticeships. I am glad that we have invested in apprenticeships north of the border. Politicians are beginning to understand that we cannot just have a factory churning out people who go through primary and secondary education, go to university, and then get their masters. In order to have a diverse economy, it is important that we invest in apprenticeships. I make the plea that I always make, which is for pay equality for young people. Unfortunately, at the moment under-25s are excluded from the national living wage, and apprentices under UK law can still be paid as little as £3.50 per hour. If we are serious about building a country that works for everyone, we have to pay people appropriately.

The main thing I want to speak about is internships. I had the fortune to undertake a political internship a number of years ago. It was unpaid, and there is a wider debate that we could have about such internships. However, at this time of year when we, as MPs, are looking at our staffing budgets, this debate challenged me to think about what I am doing as a Member of Parliament to bring through the next generation of politicians—not people who studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at university, but people from different backgrounds. That is why I am very pleased to be advertising a paid internship. It is called the John Wheatley internship in recognition of a Labour MP for east Glasgow in the 1920s who came to Parliament and did an immense amount of good on housing.

There is a challenge to us as politicians to ensure that, when we take people on in our offices, we pay them appropriately. If we are serious about getting people into politics and serious about our offices representing our communities, we cannot just take people from the local university societies.

[Stephanie Peacock]

Working with the local college, Barnsley College, I have a living wage apprentice in my office. My apprentice, Adam, works in my office and then spends some of his time studying. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would be good to encourage Members across the House to have political internships and apprenticeships both in Westminster and in the constituency?

[David Linden]

Absolutely. I genuinely and warmly commend the hon. Lady for having an apprentice who she pays the national living wage. This is a subject very close to my heart, and the leadership she is showing is to be commended—others in the House should certainly be doing so. The issue of internships is something we have to grapple with. We know that a number of offices have unpaid internships—I am sure some of my colleagues have people on unpaid internships—but if we are serious about getting people from different backgrounds involved in politics, we need to show leadership.

On social tourism, I get quite annoyed at The Guardian for continuing to use the same photograph of run-down flats that were demolished about 10 years ago, but it is fairly well known that Glasgow East is not exactly the richest part of the world. In my constituency, the headteacher at Sandaig Primary is open about the fact that some of the children who go there have never seen sand. One of the ways we can take people from different backgrounds and show them different things is through the concept of social tourism. I commend the Family Holiday Association. Getting people into different environments and out of their comfort zone is hugely important.

This has been a very good debate, although it is a shame that it was only 90 minutes. There is definitely the appetite from Members for a Backbench Business Committee debate. I urge the right hon. Member for Putney to continue. I think she will find cross-party support.