Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to implement the recommendations in the report, Social mobility in Great Britain: fifth state of the nation report published by the Social Mobility Commission in November 2017.

We welcome the Social Mobility Commission’s report, which underlines the importance of removing barriers to opportunity across the whole country. Social mobility is a top priority for this government and my department - we are therefore already taking action to overcome the challenges identified in the Commission’s report.

The report highlights the postcode lottery of social mobility and in particular the existence of cold spots of opportunity in some costal and rural areas. To tackle this, our Opportunity Areas programme is investing £72 million to make progress on educational outcomes in 12 of the most challenging places. The choice of these 12 areas was informed, in part, by the Commission’s own Social Mobility Index.

The report also focuses on the importance of ensuring excellent early education opportunities are available everywhere. To achieve this, we are investing an additional £1 billion per year by 2019-20 to deliver 30 hours of free childcare along with 15 hours of free early education for disadvantaged two year-olds. We have also recently announced £8.5 million to support local authorities to fund projects to improve early language and literacy.

In its report, the Commission also emphasises the importance of employer engagement with young people to boost social mobility by improving access to high-skill, high-pay jobs. To achieve this, the department’s careers strategy, published in December 2017, will ensure that schools offer every young person seven encounters with employers between years seven to 13.