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Social Mobility: Local Roots, Lasting Change (Social Mobility Policy Committee Report)

My Lords, this was a fascinating committee with a very impressive chair and enthusiastic members. We asked witnesses for a definition of social mobility and received a very wide variety of answers. We ended up with, “Ensuring that the situation that you are born into or grow up in does not determine your outcomes in life”. In theory, of course, this could mean down as well as up—duke to dustman, for instance—but we felt it more productive to concentrate on people bettering themselves rather than moving down.

The government response has warm words and sets out plans for tackling the NEETs, who should be a scar on our society. We look forward to Alan Milburn’s final report and welcome the £2.5 billion to support young people, as well as the proposals for work experience and youth jobs grants, but fear that the penalties for employers in taking on young people will act as a deterrent to those opportunities. Will the Government consider relaxing the employee rights for young people trying to get into employment? We moved amendments to the Bill to ensure that apprentices should not have their hopes dashed by acquiring full rights from day one, but it is important that all those trying to find work should give employers the chance to try them out.

Messing about with vocational qualifications is never a clever way to encourage take up. We had well-tried and tested BTECs and City & Guilds qualifications when the last Government introduced T-levels under the misapprehension that changing “vocational” to “technical” would, at a stroke, raise their status. T-levels are beginning to be understood and there is some encouraging take-up, but why introduce V-levels when existing provision covers the same fields? We plead with the Government not to defund existing provision until there is very sound evidence that the new qualifications on the block are valid, valued and working. To stop when T-levels and V-levels are introduced, as in the response to recommendation 9, is no use if they have not been properly evaluated and understood by students, colleges, training providers and parents, who are some of the most difficult people to convince.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, said, we were very impressed by the work in Blackpool, particularly at Blackpool and The Fylde College, where young people relish doing real work in building and engineering. Local collaboration is obviously vital for such schemes to work and the partnerships that the college has built up with local businesses, large and small, was a key factor in its success.

As the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, said, however, we must not ignore the huge contribution made by universities to social mobility. We need to ensure that financial and structural barriers do not prevent students from disadvantaged backgrounds accessing and succeeding in higher education.

We welcome the measures that the Government have announced—the Minister set those out for us in our debate yesterday—particularly to review careers guidance, to help care leavers leaving care and being left adrift, to transform the growth and skills levy, and to ensure that unspent funds go back into apprenticeships rather than into the Treasury. We shall watch with interest, in the hope that the intentions get translated into actions to enable disadvantaged people, young and old, to have the opportunity of social mobility and to become productive, happy and fulfilled members of society.

12.29 pm