Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when her Department plans to publish a response to the Social Mobility Commission's policy paper State of the nation 2016: social mobility in Great Britain, published on 16 November 2016; and which of that paper's recommendations her Department plans to implement.

We welcome the Social Mobility Commission’s report. We are considering carefully the report’s analysis and findings as we further develop policy to address the barriers to social mobility.

Thanks to the Government’s reforms, almost 1.8 million more pupils today have a place in a school that is good or better. We have also set out proposals to increase the number of good school places available, in more parts of the country, so that more children including those from disadvantaged backgrounds can benefit from a great education, by scrapping the ban on new selective school places and harnessing the expertise and resources of our universities and our independent and faith schools.

The Social Mobility Commission’s analysis has provided an important input to our understanding of the geography of social mobility; and we are also now working with 12 Opportunity Areas, all identified as social mobility coldspots by the Commission to understand how we can address the barriers to social mobility from the early years to adulthood.

Through our plans to create more good school places and transform teaching, combined with new legislation to support greater access to university and investment in technical education, we aim to ensure that where a student comes from does not determine where they get to in life. We will continue to set out further details on the Department’s approach to improving social mobility in due course.