Social Mobility and the Economy

David Evennett Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to be able to contribute to this debate today. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening) on her excellent speech and on opening the debate on this important topic, which I know she is passionate about. I was honoured to be able to work closely with her as her Whip when she was Secretary of State for Education. I particularly welcome her speech, her approach and the support she has already received from the business sector. I welcome and endorse strongly her social mobility pledge. Partnership, access to work experience, a level playing field and of course open recruiting are vital if we are to go forward and utilise the talent that we have across the whole country.

As a former teacher and lecturer, education and social mobility are particular passions of mine and are areas in which I have always tried to be involved. We are discussing social mobility in Britain to ultimately ensure that everyone has the opportunity to build a good life for themselves, regardless of their family background or the area of the country that they come from. In a socially mobile society, every individual should have a fair chance of reaching their full potential. Social mobility is not only good from a moral perspective, but from an economic perspective. By ensuring that talent is harvested across the social spectrum, we have the opportunity to boost productivity and GDP, more of which later.

I come from a family that grew up in the east end of London. It was education, opportunity, good teachers, family encouragement and also some businesses that allowed me work experience that gave me an appetite to develop. I grew up in Essex, but my family background was in Bow, where opportunities were very limited except through education, so we need to look across the country to make sure that opportunities are greater than currently exist in some places.

I actually enjoyed work experience because it meant I met other people and did other things. I learnt and got into the habit of getting up and getting there on time and participating as far as I could.

The Government have made considerable progress on education and opportunities, with 1.9 million more children now in good or outstanding schools. That is a real achievement and we should not minimise that. We should be proud of what has been done, but we need to do more. Local and central Government cannot do it all. It has to be businesses and communities—all of us—contributing and participating.

We are rather fortunate in my borough of Bexley. We are a hotspot when it comes to these things. We achieve things and I am proud of the opportunities that businesses, the council and Government policies have encouraged, which has resulted in a very good situation, but it is not enough. Even within Bexley there are children who underachieve and do not have ambition. I have always fought hard against people who say, “What can you expect? They come from that background in more deprived parts of the borough.” That is absolute rubbish. Everyone has the potential wherever they come from, and we must realise it and get opportunities for every individual. I had a longer speech, but unfortunately I have not got time to do it.

The Government, of course, have a key role, but when we look at the figures, the “State of the Nation 2017: Social Mobility in Great Britain” report found that only 6% of doctors and 12% of chief executives were from working class origins. More has to be done. In conclusion, we need a plan, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney has offered us a good plan that we can all sign up to. It is not party political; it is something for the benefit of this country and I endorse it strongly.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Because of the discipline and rigour of Members, I am now able to raise the limit to five minutes. Somebody has kindly pulled out of the debate.

[David Evennett]

I lost a minute!

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

I am sorry about that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lyn Brown]

I am going to duck that one.

Studies at Harvard University show that growing up with the toxic stress of economic hardship in the family can be severely damaging for a child, and they conclude that it has life-long effects similar to those caused by parental drug abuse or exposure to violence in the home.

I have been in this job for a few short weeks. One of the things exercising me is the very notion of social mobility itself. I am not sure that it is the right concept, and perhaps the Education Committee is on to something with its report that stated that we need a broader concept such as social justice. I fear that the concept of social mobility can be used to promote what I call a grammar school society, where a few of us can get on but most cannot, where the few of us that succeed are held up as a beacon of equal opportunity, whereas in fact those lucky few are a testament to hard work, yes, but often quite a bit of luck, frankly. A society where a few kids from deprived families get to the Cabinet table but the vast majority face daily hardship is simply not an opportunity society.

[David Evennett]

I know that the hon. Lady is very passionate because I have worked with her on many campaigns in the past, but would she endorse today’s pledge? What she is saying might be a debate for another day, but today we are trying to get bipartisan agreement on the pledge so that we can go forward on that front.

[Lyn Brown]

I assure the right hon. Gentleman that I will work with anyone in order to improve social mobility in our country, because it is something I am absolutely passionate about.

Many of us will have seen the new research from Durham University confirming that grammar school pupils do better because they are more likely to have social advantages, not because selective education is superior. If we are to have a just society, a society in which all our talent and hard work allow us to fulfil our potential, we need to have a comprehensive and co-ordinated approach to tackling today’s challenges. We cannot be satisfied with a few token programmes to help a small number of children from disadvantaged backgrounds into institutions and professions that are as dominated by privilege as ever. We cannot pretend that a few programmes amount to a strategy.

Social mobility, social inclusion or social justice are not just about school attainment and university access; as we have talked about today, unfairness persists into the workplace even for university graduates. Graduates with rich parents can earn as much as 60% more than those who have lived with the disadvantages of poverty. The gap is smaller for graduates from the most prestigious universities but, as we know, those institutions have the least inclusive intakes.

What about those who do not go to university? Where are the essential high-grade apprenticeships that this country needs, ones that mean we can be equally proud of the graduates of apprenticeships as of academia? Do we not need to challenge the bias that pervades post-16 education and learning so as to secure social mobility and inclusion to provide the skills base that this country needs for the 21st century?

Any social inclusion, social justice or social mobility policy must address increasing wealth inequality. It must also address the shocking gap in productivity and economic opportunities between our global cities and our smaller towns and coastal and rural communities which have been held back by our existing economic model. As a society, we cannot afford to continue with an economic model that promotes a minority of our people while the rest are denied investment. Labour is determined to embed greater equality, wider opportunity and shared prosperity right across the country. Shared prosperity is our goal—to coin a phrase—to create a society for the many and not the few.