Post-16 Financial Education

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Of course, this is part of what the Money and Pensions Service strategy aims to do, as is the work I identified that is being supported by the dormant assets funding. We also need to work alongside the legitimate parts of the industry to make sure that the support and information that it is providing is made more broadly available to young people—and, in fact, to people throughout their lives. I suspect that those of us who did not have the opportunity to have even the type of financial education that children nowadays get have a continuing need to understand our finances well into our lives and, in particular, into our retirement.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend the Minister that many excellent examples exist in primary schools right across our country of financial literacy being taught to young people. Although I absolutely accept that, some urgent attention is required to ensure that children and parents are educated about their presence in the online world. Children as young as five years old are playing Roblox, and they need to extract money and card information that might be automatically available online. There is an urgent need for education very early on, but also among parents. Does she agree?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend makes an important point about the intersection of financial education and the need to ensure that our children have a good understanding about their online safety. Both those things, by the way, have been identified by the curriculum and assessment review that this Government set up as areas where it will want to say more when it reports in the autumn. As my noble friend says, parents have concerns as to whether there is sufficient space and direction in the school curriculum for these areas to be covered.