Social Mobility and the Professions
Brooks Newmark tells MPs that social mobility has stalled and he calls for urgent education and welfare reform to ensure that every child and teenager can aspire to, and achieve, their life's dreams.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker), I was not expecting to speak in this debate, but its title captured my imagination. My mother was from the south Bronx and left school in her early teens to make ties. My father was from Newark, New Jersey, and the only job he could get was breaking up the ground prior to the construction of the runway at Newark airport. Unfortunately, he died at an early age. My mother came over here and married an Englishman. I then had great opportunities that I might not have had in my previous life. Today, here I am—the hon. Member for Braintree. Social mobility has worked to my advantage, and this debate is important. I want to focus on some of the issues that have arisen in the 11 years or so since the Government came to power.
In 1997 social mobility was heralded as part of the ideological bedrock of the Government. Tony Blair himself said: “If we are in politics for one thing, it is to make sure that all children are given the best chance in life.” All of us, on both sides of the House, believe that. The current Prime Minister echoes the sentiment, promising us a social mobility “crusade”.
However, the rhetoric and promises of the Government have, unfortunately, run aground on the rocks of reality. Between 1998 and 2006 the number of families living in severe poverty increased by 400,000. Furthermore, child poverty, after housing costs, rose by 100,000 between 2006-07 and 2007-08. As the full effects of the recession continue to unfurl, I expect that the situation for those already in poverty, or those teetering on the brink, will deteriorate further.
Social mobility has stalled; the class divide remains. Thousands of children are being deprived of the opportunity of a better life. The Government have claimed to be the champion of social mobility, but they have fundamentally failed to understand the problem. We do not make people’s lives better by telling them that they have a legal right to a better life, by papering over the cracks or by addressing the symptoms and not the causes. The Government need to understand that the only way to give people a better chance in life is to tackle the root causes of the problem and build pathways of opportunity out of the cycle of deprivation. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) on the work that he has done on the issue through the Centre for Social Justice, which he founded.
Too many children are born with wholly unequal life chances. The best possible start in life comes with a stable family life and a stable income. As a start, abolishing the couple penalty in the tax credit system would certainly help. Child poverty is a serious impediment to social mobility. The Government have set a commendable target to halve it by 2010, but their track record suggests that they are unlikely to achieve that goal. They have already missed their 2005 target to reduce child poverty by a quarter from 1998-99 levels. Furthermore, the Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts that, on the basis of their current policies, the Government will miss their 2010 target as well. I say that with regret.
The inequalities that persist throughout the education system begin even before a child first enters the classroom. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn) on his work on the panel on fair access to the professions. However, notwithstanding the points that he made earlier, in 2007 the Sutton Trust, founded by my friend Peter Lampl, said that despite 10 years of a Labour Government the best schools remained socially selective—hardly a glowing epitaph for a Government claiming to be the champion of social mobility.
The Conservative policy of making money available for children from the poorest backgrounds through a pupil premium and of ensuring that extra funds follow those pupils to the school that educates them, would mean that wherever they went to school, disadvantaged children would have the extra support that they need. We also need to target deprived schools, which can become ghettos of disillusionment for many who have untapped talents to succeed in life—a point admirably made by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker). More money in deprived schools would pay for higher-quality teaching and ensure that help is targeted to where it is needed most. The Sutton Trust has found that the association between adults’ education and that of their children is stronger in Britain than in other developed nations. A decent and equitable standard of education can set a child on the right path towards a profession and give not only them, but future generations, a chance to escape the debilitating cycle of deprivation. The upward trajectory of social mobility begins, first and foremost, with education. Young people’s time at school and at home helps to shape their aspirations.
Worryingly, the panel on fair access to the professions found that professionals typically grew up in families with incomes well above that of the average family, and that only one in five young people from an average income background and one in eight from a poorer background aspire to be professionals. Young people are not being given the support and advice to direct them along the education and talent development pathways that could lead them to a better life. Already, seven in 10 young people are unhappy with the careers support they receive. We must tap this reservoir of potential in young people from lower-income homes—not just for their own sake, but for the sake of the country’s future. By 2020, there are expected to be 90 per cent. fewer unskilled jobs and 50 per cent. more professional jobs in Britain. This is an enormous opportunity finally to make some real progress on social mobility, and the Government should have seized on it long ago.
I would suggest that the Government reflect on some of our proposals if they are not to miss this golden opportunity. A massive expansion in the provision of real apprenticeships at A-level standard could create 100,000 additional training places annually, and a new all-ages careers service and a professional careers adviser in every secondary school and college would help to tap the potential out there. We have also pledged to invest £20 million by the third year of a Conservative Government to provide more than 1,000 bursaries for new university places every year. That would extend to part-time study, and could be decided on in conjunction with employers. However, it is important to remember that social inequalities can persist and continue to inhibit social mobility right through higher education and beyond. When seven in 10 of the top graduate recruiters target only 20 of our country’s universities, we can see this as a systemic problem.
We must realise that it is never too late for social mobility, but we must also be able to accept when policies simply are not working. The new deal, one of this Government’s flagship policies, has failed to get people back into work and failed to improve people’s life chances. For example, in 2008 just 29 per cent. of new deal participants had gone on into employment. For all its hype, the new deal is more of a revolving door back to benefits than a fast track to social mobility; last year, two in every five participants returned immediately back to benefits. That cannot be good. Fully one third of the participants in the new deal for young people have been on the programme at least once before, and 50,000 new deal participants have been on it four or more times. For them, the new deal offers a constant way of life rather than a stepping stone to improve their opportunities.
Welfare requires radical reform if it is to begin to be a tool of personal progress and advancement rather than a constant crutch. Every claimant able to work should be engaged in full-time activity as part of their back-to-work process, including mandatory community work for the long-term unemployed. We also need much tougher sanctions for those not willing to return to work. Private providers of welfare-to-work services should have the freedom to innovate and think outside the box, and be paid by the results they achieve.
It seems that the Prime Minister, who describes himself as “a child of the first great wave of post-war social mobility”, has forgotten where he came from. Under his Government, social mobility has stalled. Today we have a culture in which poverty of hope and poverty of aspiration still prevail. No child should be held back by their background. We need as a matter of urgency both education reform and welfare reform, to ensure that we bring about the necessary change in our society so that every child and teenager can aspire to, and achieve, their life’s dreams.