Queen’s Speech

Earl of Kinnoull Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Storey, with his typically thought-provoking points on this important set of policy areas. I remind the House that I was a member of your Lordships’ Social Mobility Select Committee, and will today restrict my remarks to areas related to this. That committee reported in April last year. We received the response in July and debated the report in late December. It was very heartening to me to hear Her Majesty in the gracious Speech talk of what the new Government aim to do educationally,

“to ensure that every child has the opportunity to attend a good school and that all schools are fairly funded”.

Later on the Speech states that the Government,

“will work to ensure people have the skills they need for the high-skilled, high-wage jobs of the future”.

The Explanatory Notes state:

“We want to make sure all children, regardless of where they live or their background, can get a world-class education that unlocks talent and creates opportunity”.


No one in this House, I am confident, would disagree with such aspirations. The issue, therefore, is how to convert intentions into successful actions. Some part of the road map to fulfilling these admirable aims was laid out by the Minister in his opening speech, for which I am grateful. I want to make further suggestions about the road map and just three points this afternoon.

My first point relates generally to the Social Mobility Committee report. The report was wide ranging and made a number of important findings and recommendations. It is an excellent start for a successful road map. Will the Minister agree to revisit the report with a view to implementing some if not all the recommendations? To encourage him, I submit that this year we have seen evidence of some remarkable attitudinal changes among our fellow citizens here in the UK, particularly the young. I cannot help but feel that one of the causes is to do with inadequate social mobility. Many other commentators have said that. The gracious Speech rightly aspires to address that and our report is also aimed at this, which is why I feel that it is a rich source of potential thoughts for the road map.

My second point relates to data in this area. In our report we said that,

“data is the foundation of any policy. Without good data, these problems will be impossible to understand and then solve”.

There are two main concerns about data. The first was simply ensuring that we collect the right amount of data—not too much or too little—of sufficient purity and over a long time. Secondly, we should ensure that bona fide research can be undertaken on all relevant data by any verified bona fide researchers.

Our report set out only some of the current mechanisms for collecting those data. Gosh, it is complicated, as so many institutions at local and national level collect data, always for sound reasons. Some of the most valuable source data lie within HMRC. But we felt strongly that there was no magic bullet for dealing with data. One simply wants an approach that is constant and determined for seeking ever-better data. The data issue that concerned us more, however, was the ability of our best minds to get access to the data and analyse. The Government, where HMRC data sharing was concerned, said in their own written evidence to us,

“only researchers working on behalf of the Secretary of State can have access to this information”.

In other words, access to vital HMRC data remains very restricted and that needs to change.

Accordingly, does the Minister agree with me that measures to ensure “ever better data” and an “ever better research regime” are things that the government road map should include?

My third and final point concerns our urging the Government to commission a cost-benefit analysis of increasing spend in careers education in schools. The issues are simple. Currently, this is an area of not so much spend or attention in schools. Indeed, we heard from Sir Michael Wilshaw, then of Ofsted, that careers advice does not form a core part of its grading of schools, so obviously schools pay less attention to it. Evidence suggested that many people head off to university and then discover after a short period that the academic route is not for them. That is no doubt preventable in at least some cases with better careers advice. Someone in these circumstances suffers a reversal that is damaging to morale and at the same time may have run up big student loan debt. That in turn causes loss to the Exchequer not only because clearly some of the loans will not be repaid, but there is a natural likelihood of a government cost in relaunching a career.

It was not just us in the committee who felt this. Sir John Holman, in his excellent report for the Gatsby Foundation, looked into the same matter. He conducted his own fairly limited cost-benefit analysis and concluded with PWC’s help that some spend in this area would in fact represent a saving to the Exchequer. Cost-benefit analysis would no doubt help decision-making here and I know that careers advice is not expensive. Sir John Holman also concluded that just £54 per pupil would make a substantial difference. In closing, I ask the Minister if he would agree to look again at the suggestion of a cost-benefit analysis with a view to including it within the road map.