Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)

My Lords, I too warmly applaud this report. What is so encouraging is that it does not have all the answers. I think it has whetted in a great number of people a curiosity, an appetite to study further, to have more data. That, to me, is a very encouraging start. Social mobility is a theme that has dominated most of my working life. I worked in Brixton and Peckham. I was chairman of a juvenile court. Many noble Lords know that I was for 17 years chancellor of the University of Hull. I tried to represent the Isle of Wight, another very poor area, but my constituency was South West Surrey, which contained Farnham, Haslemere and Godalming—a totally different picture. The point about disadvantage, deprivation and opportunity is that these are so contextual. The Education Policy Institute tells us that disadvantaged children are already five months behind their peers by the end of reception. By GCSE, that gap has grown to 19 months. This is something that people in the field know. There are a great number of factors. What I want to ask is: what are the protective factors? When I worked in my child guidance clinic, when a child came from a very difficult, poor home in a disrupted and difficult area there was a sort of reluctant pessimism that they would inevitably become a delinquent or fail at school. What fascinates me is those people who, in spite of all those factors, have made it through because that is a much more positive message and one from which we can learn. In my present career, I often discreetly ask people who evidently had a pretty grim start what it was—was it a grandparent, a priest, a school, the armed services, youth groups, music or sport? I hope that, through data, we can get people’s self-report about the factors that have made a great difference. Of course, employers have a huge part to play, and I welcome the way in which many of them have been mobilised. The other day Sainsbury’s was offering more work placements, careers guidance and much else besides. A young man who I greatly admire co-chairs the social mobility allies at a professional services firm. He is the son of Albanian refugees who came to the UK during the Kosovo war. He says that it is all too easy to overlook how important mindset and self-belief are. If you do not believe you have the ability to achieve or do not see role models who have managed to achieve impressive results, you feel that that other people who come from a background similar to your own will, whatever the Government say, struggle to engage. We need employers to recognise the value of socio-economic diversity. We can help individuals build confidence and aspiration, but we also need organisations to be open to talent that may not fit the traditional mould. There is a huge amount of untapped potential that can be unlocked when employers focus on capability and potential rather than pedigree. We talk a lot about opening doors, but for many from working-class backgrounds, there is still a feeling that they need to change how they speak and how they dress to fit in and progress. Social mobility is not just about giving people opportunities, it is about creating environments where people can be themselves and be seen as credible, capable and worthy of progression. It is a good example.