Social Mobility: Local Roots, Lasting Change (Social Mobility Policy Committee Report)
Friday, 4 September 2026
Contributions
Motion to Take Note
Moved by
Baroness Manningham-Buller
That this House takes note of the Report from the Social Mobility Policy Committee Social Mobility: Local Roots, Lasting Change (HL Paper 201, Session 2024–26).
Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)
My Lords, there is hardly a more important subject than the future of our young people and their contribution to the wealth of the nation and to their own happiness. I was privileged to lead a one-off committee last year on social mobility. What the committee learned was sobering and shocking, as a result of lots of evidence that we received. Our remit was to look at how education and work could be better integrated. This is a complex subject—we have just heard in the wind-up of the last debate references to young people—which covers a range of things. Therefore, our first decision was that we would focus on four areas: the importance of place, or where the issues are arising; NEETs, which is a horrible expression meaning those young people not in education, employment or training; the particular problems of those aged between 16 and 18; and data. I hope that not many of your Lordships will criticise us for the things that we did not cover. Some may have been more important but to have covered them all we would have needed a full standing committee on the subject. Early years, mental health, housing, the benefits system, the care system, the effect of Covid, social media, levers for economic growth, attitudes to work—any one of those could have kept us busy. However, despite what we learned being sobering and shocking, it is encouraging that there is now plenty of public and political focus on these issues. We heard a number of options for definitions of social mobility. We ended up with working on the basis that where you are born, the circumstances in which you are born and the income of your parents should not determine everything that happens in the rest of your life. As far as possible, it is the responsibility of all Governments to provide circumstances in which our citizens can thrive from an early age. Several witnesses said that social mobility is not about fishing out of the education system bright, young, talented but disadvantaged people, sending them to a Russell Group university and expecting them to be earning £100,000 as a lawyer within five minutes. We were told that by a number of people and the committee agreed. Since we reported, there has been a lot of broad policy and HMG initiatives on this subject, and I will talk about some of them later, but we found it very compelling that different solutions are required all over the country—in coastal areas, remote rural areas and inner cities. Inner cities are also different; problems in the centre of Bristol may be different from those in Birmingham. Therefore, whatever frameworks or initiatives HMG have, we must recognise that the best solutions come from the people in the areas where the problems are, who know those problems—the transport issues, the local education, what the local jobs are and so on—or who can help create those job opportunities and remove barriers. In a moment, I will talk about a really encouraging visit that we had to Blackpool, but one of our recommendations, building on what I just said, is that local partnerships must be the answer. I do not wish to pick out particular evidence, but I remember being very struck, as were other members of the committee, by one area—I cannot remember where—where the local fire brigade had noticed the NEETs and taken the initiative to do something. We should not prescribe that it has to be the further education college, if there is one, or the DWP: it has to be a combination of people helping. Our other recommendations are to do with education. It is striking how many people fail maths and English who are then barred from further progress at GCSE. We went to Blackpool, where the further education college has a drop-in centre by the front door to give extra coaching in this area, but the committee tended to believe that the presentation of maths to students who understand its functionality and value in today’s internet-enabled world needed some fresh thinking. Also striking was that the loan that someone from a low-income family gets to go to university has not risen for seven years—or had not at the time of our report—thereby barring a number of people. At that stage—and things are beginning to change—the committee also felt that there needed to be greater scope for progress on creative, technical and vocational subjects in education. Career advice seemed pretty patchy. The trailblazers looked like a good proposal; we hoped that the arrangement in which the Minister straddles the DWP and the Department for Education would continue. Data again needs improvement, including the ability to share, so that we know what the problems are. At the time we did our report, there were also particular problems with care leavers making the transition to work. We heard evidence that, to get enough to pay for rent and the transport to get to work, they would have to give up their accommodation allowance, so there is a Catch-22 there. We thought that the growth and skills levy should be extended and that we needed datasets on parental income. I mentioned Blackpool earlier. Blackpool comes near the bottom of most indicators of social mobility, employment and a range of other issues. But, partly led by the Social Mobility Commission—I applaud its excellent work in this area and it gave us great help in working out what we were going to do—the people in Blackpool have created a fantastic partnership. It is already beginning to have results, but there is a long way to go. It involves the local authority, the further education college, employers, the DWP, charities and students. Listening to students about their experiences and what those in education are doing to help those in the NEET category was inspirational. Again, we were encouraged to think in terms of various tiers of people who are not in education, employment and training, which ranges from those who are very nearly ready for employment, if the jobs are available, to those who are so far away that they are without the concept of what jobs are and the social skills that they need to do them—turning up on time and so on. The suggestion was that that group needed particular attention. To quote the Social Mobility Commission, it is “the truly disadvantaged, who get lost” in these areas. We had some super evidence, including from the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, from whom we are going to hear later, who influenced us and is quoted in our report. We had 58 pieces of written evidence and heard 54 witnesses—students, employers, educationalists, university professors, training providers, further education colleges, academics and Government Ministers. I am not going to pick out anything, except to say that a particularly poignant piece of evidence came from an academic studying NEETs. She told us how she went to interview a young man in this category. He was thrilled to see her, as she was the first person who had taken an interest in his future. He thought that she was coming to offer him a job, but she was coming to do academic research. I thank the members of the committee, starting with the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, whose proposal this was. I heard the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, thanking the clerks on the committee whose report was debated previously. Anybody in this House knows what fantastic support we have: Andrea, Bruce and Emily helped us enormously. I also thank the committee itself: everybody turned up, contributed and did the maximum that they could to help produce a report of which we could be proud. Before I end, I need to inject a slightly grumpy note. I do so reluctantly, given that the Government are doing a lot in this area, but we did a lot of hard work. The Government’s response, rather than two months, took eight. The response was issued a day after the Summer Recess and—to be slightly personally grumpy—the committee was chaired by me, not by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, as the Government’s response said. Having said that, I know that there is a problem with managing business, but I plead again—as other Select Committee chairs have before—that when Members of this House do extensive, careful, thorough work, which takes a lot of time and costs the taxpayer substantial amounts of money, their reports are taken seriously and given adequate time for debate. We should not experience what this committee did. I already mentioned the flurry of government initiatives in this area. Before we reported, we had Charlie Mayfield’s review Keep Britain Working and the work being done, although it was not complete, by the Curriculum and Assessment Review. Since we reported, we have had the interim report from Alan Milburn, some changes on arrangements for apprenticeships, job placements, youth hubs, the youth jobs grant and a jobs graduate scheme. These clearly have value severally, but—and I have not been able to discuss this with the committee because this all happened after we submitted our report—the concerns I have are whether this is co-ordinated, whether data is being collected on the value of these initiatives and their success, whether there is the right proportion of direction from central government and the freedom for local initiatives, and whether they cover enough of the country. It was clear to us that it was easier to make progress where there are combined authorities than in areas that are not covered. There are quite a lot of gaps in the country that are not covered at this level. I will probably have more to say in summing up but, at this stage, I beg to move.
Lord Winston (Lab)
My Lords, it is a huge privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, for whom I have huge respect. So often I tremble when I see her, but always with respect. This is an excellent report. The noble Baroness mentioned that it obviously has gaps, which there are bound to be. I want to start with the gap on early years learning, because it is relevant to what happens later in the rest of learning. I am reminded of something that happened some 50 years ago, experimentally, with neuroscientists who blindfolded a number of newborn kittens. What was interesting was that, depending on how long the blindfold was in place and for how long they were in darkness afterwards, within, say, three weeks of blindfolding, their visual impairment was permanent. Sometimes, they were virtually completely blind. In other experiments that were done, some cats showed that they could not identify geometric spaces, in spite of normal cognitive ability in other animals. The fact of the matter is that their eyes were completely normal. Their retinas, lenses and muscles were fine, but the visual cortex at the back of the brain was hampered. Indeed, in many cases, there were no proper connections with synapses. Those synapses are the result of experience. Experience is the basis of how we learn completely. These cats did not learn to see. Just as with children who, as they go on, learn by experience all the time, this is something that we have to understand educationally. What is so important is that this applies to early years learning. It is rather sad to think of SureStart, for example, which started under a Labour Government years ago and was highly effective. It was shown by my colleagues at University College London to be a really effective way not merely of improving learning but also social cohesion, behaviour and a whole range of other things, such as the ability to express oneself and to communicate and connect with other people. That it ended is sad indeed. This applies in primary schools as well, of course, and I want to devote time to them, although I have so little. We neglect primary schools at the most important stage of all education. I see this when I go around coastal areas, for example, where the issue is not just NEET young people but the number of children on free school meals who are damaged as a result. That is one of the things we try to do at Imperial College, with no interest in trying to recruit students. We simply want to provide a public benefit with our outreach. That is very important. To conclude, one of the things that the committee recognised was that connections with the universities are very important. It does not have to be local—in fact, at Imperial we go as far as the north of England with some of our outreach activity. This is something we should be expressing, but it is not properly funded, just as, indeed, primary education is not properly funded either.
Lord Willetts (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the committee on an excellent report. I am sure it was the right approach to focus on a specific set of problems, and it is a very well-judged collection that is put to us to debate today. Personally, I have always thought that the biggest single problem we face in social mobility is the prospect for those 16 year-olds who do not get good GCSEs. That is where the most shocking waste and loss of opportunity occurs. I would like to pick up on three specific points in the report. First, there is the brief discussion of work experience in paragraph 50 and elsewhere. There is an extraordinary phenomenon at the moment: T-levels include a requirement for 45 days of work experience and have significant funding for employers to provide that work experience. That is having the effect of pushing all the work experience options into a relatively small programme and number of beneficiaries. Does the Minister see the case instead, in so far as there is public funding for work experience, for spreading it more widely and more equitably, rather than it being so specifically linked to T-levels? Secondly, I should refer to higher education. Higher education is the only stage of education where the kids from the poor areas outperform. It is the one stage where they catch up a bit. The report is absolutely right to identify the importance of maintenance loans for them. It is still the case that kids from poorer areas are less likely to go to university. I always enjoy it when the Minister takes the opportunity of these Lords debates to reflect on policy. There is a lot of talk at the moment on restricting and controlling the numbers of people going to university. Does she agree with me that the danger, when you control numbers, is that it is the marginal students from the tough backgrounds who lose out? The evidence is that those cases where it is the marginal students—those who might just have gone or just did not go—are where you can do the best and most rigorous empirical research. That research shows that the students in those circumstances who do go enjoy far better work opportunities and life outcomes. Finally, and third on my list, it is great that the report has such a meaty chapter on data. We need to link data to have proper social mobility research, of the sort that Raj Chetty has conducted in the US. But we do not just need it for research; it is also necessary for the place agenda, which is another strong theme in the report. At the moment there are many people providing services to young NEETs and others who are not totally confident about what data they can share with other bodies, including other public bodies that are also trying to help these people. Often, there is overcautious legal advice about GDPR obligations, so data is not being shared. There is a role for the Government in signalling clearly to those players that they can share data.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
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.
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.
Lord Ravensdale (CB)
My Lords, for me, this journey started all the way back in 2024 when I proposed this topic as a special inquiry, so it is very good at last to see the work brought to a conclusion in this debate. First, I thank our superb chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, for her sterling work in keeping us all focused on delivery, steering us through a complex topic and keeping us entertained with her amazing Cold War spy stories. I also thank our clerks, Andrea, Bruce and Emily, for all their efforts, culminating in an excellent report. Finally, we need to single out the Social Mobility Commission for its expert advice and support throughout the process. We must also note that we are standing on the shoulders of previous work done in the House in this area, in particular, the previous committee in 2015, led by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley. Something that we have clearly demonstrated throughout this work is the real importance of a regional, local approach, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, to social mobility in making progress in this area, having heard from many of the excellent local partnerships. We have made good progress in this area, both in the government responses to our recommendations and in the work done in your Lordships’ House on the English devolution Act. However, it is an area that the Government need to continue focusing on as they progress their devolution agenda in the coming years. As the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, said, many areas of the country do not have that focus on the way that our devolution agenda is currently being progressed. On data, I am pleased to see the acceptance of our recommendations on data and I look forward to seeing the outputs of the government review in March 2027 on the development of broader datasets in social mobility; I cannot overstate the importance of this work in helping to better understand the drivers of social mobility. That is really going to help us design better interventions and ultimately help to improve life chances for so many disadvantaged communities across the UK. I finish with a quote from a noble Lord we all remember fondly, Lord Boyce: “There are no such thing as problems, only solutions in disguise”. I am grateful for the work of the committee and its collaboration with the Government in helping to tease out some of those solutions, which will make a real difference to the life chances of so many in those disadvantaged communities and ultimately continue our journey to a fairer society and opportunity for all, which is something that we can all get behind. I thank again the committee and the Government for all their efforts, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, who reminded the committee of the importance of data. I join him and others in complimenting the noble Baroness on her chairmanship. Her earlier career gave her unparalleled skills in interrogation. While welcoming much of the Government’s response, I was disappointed with their principal response. That is because the substance of our report is captured in its title, Social Mobility: Local Roots, Lasting Change , and if there is one paragraph in the report that sums it up, it is paragraph 236: “We have further concluded that those initiatives are best taken forward by local government, working in collaboration with Skills England and … universities, FE Colleges, schools and local employers, and, crucially, the DWP”. However, in the introduction to the Government’s response this concept of devolution of responsibility and a fresh approach is totally absent. Worse, the Government then reject what I regard as our key recommendation that we should build on the eight youth trailblazers. That was kicked into touch: “We expect to publish interim findings during the next two years and will develop the value for money assessment once longer term impacts have developed”. Rest in peace. But the committee’s message was actually received by the new Prime Minister, who made a speech on this issue shortly after he became Prime Minister. The message was this: “The current local government restructure and the creation of mayoral combined authorities is an opportunity for Government to devolve the power and resources needed for those authorities to lead work, through local partnerships with schools, colleges, universities and employers and Skills England, to promote social mobility and address the acute NEET problem”. That is exactly what we recommended but it was not reflected in the Government’s response, which was published after Mr Burnham became Prime Minister. There is another point that I want to make. During the Recess I read Jeremy Hunt’s book Can We Be Rich Agai n? This is what he said about the DWP budget on unemployment: “Can national employment programmes ever be as sensitive to local or individual situations as those run locally? The whole system would be far more tailored to individual situations if we devolved responsibility for getting people back into work to elected mayors or unitary authorities. If they were allowed to keep a proportion of any savings made, we would be likely to see a far quicker rise in the number of adults in work than by relying on a centralised national bureaucracy”. That is exactly in line with our report. Devolving budgets and devolving responsibility locally would indeed bring about lasting change here.
Lord Harlech (Con)
My Lords, as a member of the committee, I also express my gratitude to our chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, along with our clerk and her outstanding team. I draw attention to my registered interests as an employer and an active Army Reserve officer. I also pay tribute to the exceptional staff at Blackpool and The Fylde College, and all our witnesses. However, I want to reiterate our chair’s point that the publication of the Government’s response took eight months and was published on the day immediately after the House adjourned. I have formally written to the Government Chief Whip, the Minister, and the chair of the Liaison Committee regarding the timing of this response and performance. The rate at which people are speaking makes this debate feel like a QSD. In conjunction with the meagre three minutes offered to respond to the committee’s serious hard work of nearly a year, my personal view is that this behaviour from the Government displays more than a degree of contempt for the committee’s work. It is also a shame that not a single Labour Back-Bencher who was part of the committee is here today; they were all very valid members during the committee’s work. Turning to the substance of our report, employment remains the single most effective vehicle for social mobility—far surpassing any strategy, taskforce or policy framework—but to create the jobs, you need to create the right environment, including housing, transport and digital connectivity. However, cumulative burdens since 2024 have made hiring increasingly costly: higher employer national insurance contributions; above-inflation minimum wage growth, which has narrowed the youth pay differential; and immediate employment rights under the Employment Rights Act. Consequently, sectors like retail and hospitality—traditionally the primary entry point for young workers—are experiencing severe job cuts. The British Chambers of Commerce now projects youth unemployment to reach 17.6% next year. We should not be surprised that taxing employment results in fewer available jobs. When our committee recommended lowering the levy rate for smaller businesses, we were informed that levy operations fall under Treasury jurisdiction. This policy environment leaves nearly a million young people not in education, employment or training. Among them, 60% have never held a job, compared to 40% in 2005. Government reviewer Alan Milburn calculates the annual economic cost of youth disengagement at £125 billion, exceeding our national education budget. The repercussions extend beyond economics. Milburn’s findings indicate that young men in the NEET category are five times more likely to acquire a criminal record than their peers, while half of those aged 15 to 17 in youth offender institutions possess primary school levels of literacy and numeracy.
Captain of the King’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard and Deputy Chief Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)
The noble Lord has exceeded his speaking time.
Lord Harlech (Con)
It is advisory. In the absence of legitimate career paths—
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
The noble Lord is right: the speaking time is advisory. However, given the number of speakers we have in all three of today’s debates, if the Ministers are going to have appropriate time to respond, and if we are going to finish at a reasonable hour on a Friday, it is three minutes.
Lord Harlech (Con)
I will then put forward two direct questions to the Minister. First, will she advocate with the Treasury to expand national insurance exemptions to cover all employees under 25 in the upcoming Budget? Secondly, will she confirm that the final Milburn report will be released promptly and that it will incorporate participation conditionality?
Baroness Prashar (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, and her committee for producing this very thoughtful and focused report. The committee’s focus on education and training opportunities for 16 to 18 year-olds is pertinent, as is its recommendation regarding local leadership, given the regional disparities. While the Government’s response is encouraging, it is, however, disappointing that they are not keen on the expansion of youth guarantee trailblazer pilots or expanding their remit to become pilots on social mobility. I take this opportunity to highlight the importance of literacy as a determinant for social mobility, and the effectiveness of place-based approaches. The link between social mobility and socioeconomic status and low literacy in the UK is profoundly strong and intergenerational. Despite numerous government strategies, the situation has persisted for 50 years. Research shows that children’s lives, from their earliest moments, are shaped by characteristics of neighbourhoods and local circumstances. Based on this research, the National Literacy Trust—which I co-founded, and of which I now serve as president—has for several years advocated for place-based solutions through 12 hubs in local areas. Through these hubs, it has worked with multiple stakeholders to galvanise the whole community to improve local levels of literacy and help drive social mobility. This approach also ensures sustainability. Based on this experience, I urge the Government to take the committee’s emphasis on place seriously. To achieve social mobility and inclusion, the importance of literacy skills should not be underestimated. Lack of literacy skills can be traced back to early years, and an early literacy deficit affects future life chances. A focus on literacy skills, particularly during early years, should be given a priority, as these skills are a crucial determinant in enabling acquisition of education and social mobility. This is not a criticism of the fact that committee did not look at this area; I am just highlighting the importance of the link between taking advantage of education at later stages and this ability. I look forward to the response from the noble Baroness.
Baroness Porter of Fulwood (Con)
My Lords, as we consider this issue it is also important to look at how it intersects with the criminal justice system. We know there is a cycle whereby disadvantage can lead to educational disengagement. This can lead to someone ending up outside of education, employment or training. Once there, this puts them at greater risk of getting involved with the criminal justice system. Having then been involved with the criminal justice system, this further reduces their employment prospects. I had pulled out the same statistics that my noble friend Lord Harlech has already quoted, showing just how substantial the link between youth offending and NEET status is. The DWP report he quoted—I will not repeat his statistics—goes on to say: “The pipeline from education failure, to offending, to sustained detachment is one of the most documented and most neglected in the country, but very little has changed or improved for this cohort”. That is damning. We need to do more to ensure that all the different organisations working with these young people are focused on providing a genuine pathway into education, training or employment. What we address nationally and what we address locally is important. There are obvious tensions, which have been raised, regarding where the balance of power should lie, and, as ever, the optimal answer is not a straightforward one. Too much localisation with multiple layers is confusing; people do not know where to go for help, and it is not clear where responsibility lies. Too much centralisation ignores the reality that local circumstances vary dramatically and that those closest to a specific community are often those most able to help people navigate and find a way through—a point this report makes powerfully. The youth justice system has had to grapple with this same tension. Its current consultation into the oversight and funding of youth justice services is looking at this specifically. There is a sense of a system that has been too fragmented, with too many layers and not enough clear accountability. Given the proportion of NEETs who were involved with youth justice services, any reform of the system should be looked at in the context of wider structures and needs to be fully integrated with the conversation we are having. The key principle should be that there must be clear accountability for who is responsible for doing what at each level of the system. As the Government consider the oversight and funding of the youth justice system, they should consider the points raised today and in this report and look at how to deliver a properly integrated system that helps transition people into education, training and employment; and, crucially, they should be clear on who will be responsible for making that pathway work.
Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell (Con)
My Lords, I read the committee’s excellent report over the Summer Recess, when I spent time in Washington DC and visited the recently opened Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream. It defines the core pillars of that dream—in other words, the core pillars of social mobility—as education, health, financial empowerment and entrepreneurship. Much of the exhibition turned on the essential role of business in lifting people out of poverty. When we talk about social mobility, we too often talk about it as something driven by the state—by the Government and the laws we pass in Parliament—when in truth the greatest engine of social mobility is business. Consider the late Dolly Parton, born into poverty in a one-room cabin in Tennessee, who built a global career and a multibillion-dollar fortune in the entertainment industry through sheer guts and talent. But even for those who work in Main Street rather than Hollywood, the first pay packet, the first taste of responsibility and the first colleague who believes in them—all these things—are crucial to setting up a young person for life. This subject is close to my heart, as president of the Jobs Foundation, as declared in the register. The charity recently published a report on Jobs and Education: Building the Bridge to Opportunity , which identified two sides to the NEETs crisis. On the supply side, too many young people leave school without the attitudes and workplace readiness that employers want. I welcome the committee’s call for reform of the EBacc framework. This aligns with our own finding that a broader curriculum from 14, with genuine parity between academic and vocational routes, would help prevent young people becoming NEET. I was pleased to hear the Prime Minister echo this sentiment earlier this week. On the demand side, the rising cost and risk of hiring a young person is making employers reluctant to take a chance on someone without experience. The cost of employing a young person has risen by more than £4,000 in two years. When we raise the cost of hiring young people, we should not be surprised when fewer of them are hired. As the chef Tom Kerridge told the authors, rising costs push restaurants away from the very weekend and part-time roles that once gave young people their first taste of work in the hospitality industry. When these first rungs of the jobs market disappear, the ladder of social mobility goes with them. This is why, to achieve NEET zero, both the supply and the demand side of the NEETs crisis need to be addressed.
Lord Crisp (CB)
My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend and her colleagues on an excellent and timely report, and on her speech. I will make two quick points. The first is to add my voice to the point about local partnerships and how vital they are. You cannot just have a national policy that can be applied; this is a lot of very detailed work locally, which requires the empowerment of local leadership from across the sectors, including, as the noble Lord has just said, business, alongside education, health and others. Noting that my noble friend Lord Mawson is in his place, I say that this is what he describes as a 360-degree society. This is a problem for the whole of society. I will raise one point that has not yet been raised— I note that the committee could not cover everything—about the first years of secondary school, when children are aged 11 to 13, and what I believe is technically called key stage 3. That is a time when the body and indeed the brain change fundamentally, and it happens at the same time as people move from a primary school where they had one teacher who knew them into a situation where they may have six, seven or whatever the number is, and move from an individual pastoral approach, as it were, to a less clear one. Research shows that educational attainment declines during that period. It then tends to come back up again, but the people for whom it does not are from disadvantaged backgrounds—increasingly, girls in that group. I do not know what the reasons for that are, but one could speculate that the link with the individual teacher in primary school being replaced or not being replaced may be part of that. It is good to see that an independent and government-supported taskforce, which I believe is called the Key Stage 3 Alliance, is looking at this, and that there is a whole series of other reviews around this. I would be very interested in the Minister’s observation on the importance of this stage in an educational career, and about how this can be tackled.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
My Lords, I pay tribute to our formidable chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, for keeping us all on track. I welcome the Government’s response to the Social Mobility Policy Committee’s report on social mobility and NEETs, and it is encouraging to see progress on earlier identification, better data sharing, the youth guarantee, stronger local partnerships and the development of the “risk of NEET” indicator. The central point I want to make is that NEETs are not simply an education or employment problem; they are a social mobility problem and an economic and place-based problem. Opportunity has a geography. Where a young person grows up shapes the education they receive, the employers they encounter, the transport available to them and, ultimately, the choices they can make about their future. That is why this response must be seen in the context of the much bigger question of how we create opportunity across the country. The Social Mobility Commission’s recent work makes clear that social mobility cannot be separated from the economic dynamism of the place in which people live. That is particularly relevant to NEETs. We can identify risk, offer training and even secure an apprenticeship, but, ultimately, young people need good opportunities to move into. Economic growth and social mobility are not competing objectives. A growing local economy creates jobs, demands skills and supports the services and infrastructure that underpin opportunity. The challenge is ensuring that young people with the fewest opportunities benefit from that growth. I therefore welcome the Government’s recognition that different places face different challenges. We should not assume that the answer looks the same everywhere. The causes of NEETs in a major city are not the same as in a coastal town, a former industrial community or a rural area. The employer base, transport and educational infrastructure and barriers are different. The question is not whether we have a national programme, but whether we have effective local systems that understand their young people and act early. Better data will help, but identification is not intervention. Knowing that a young person is at risk is useful only if someone takes responsibility for acting and ensuring a sustained outcome. Success cannot be measured simply by someone disappearing from the NEET statistics. The real test is whether they make a lasting transition into education, training or employment. The technical education reforms are important but, again, the test is outcomes. Do these qualifications lead to jobs or further training and are they accessible to disadvantaged young people? There is bigger point about social mobility. We often talk about individuals moving upwards, but we must also think about the mobility of places. Can towns experiencing decline attract investment, develop new industries and enable young people to build successful careers? If the answer is yes, we do something more powerful than helping a few individuals leave: we change the places themselves. The challenge is not simply to stop young people becoming NEET but to create places in which young people can see a future, with good schools and colleges, effective careers advice, apprenticeships, early support and, crucially, businesses, investment, innovation and economic growth. These things are interconnected.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, and her committee on their thoughtful report. I declare my interest as a social mobility commissioner. The Social Mobility Commission was very pleased to contribute to the inquiry, including our excellent chairman, Alun Francis, who hosting the committee at Blackpool and The Fylde College, where he is chief executive. At the commission, Alun Francis has put localism and place at the forefront of breaking down social mobility barriers, so we strongly support the committee’s calls for place-based approaches. As to the most serious matter of NEETs, the SMC has been highlighting the growing crisis for some time and contributed to Alan Milburn’s interim report. While it is true—as the Milburn report said—that getting a job is increasingly difficult for all young people, including graduates, it is important not to conflate the Government’s political and economic decisions that are deterring employers from recruiting young people with the social conditions that are driving the huge increase in economically inactive NEETs. The commission is currently discussing with the Milburn review team its soon to be published qualitative research with young people who are NEET in Blackpool. That research shows how they are not a homogenous group and how, for many, a lack of stability and security in their home life influences their well-being and lack of progress towards education, employment or training. Addressing the causes of our NEET epidemic must go beyond increasing and spreading economic opportunity. It must involve topics that, too often, politicians and policymakers are reluctant to discuss, the most obvious and important being the family and parenting. This is not just about household incomes or parents’ educational attainment; it is about highlighting the need for both parents to provide stability, uphold social norms and teach their children common standards that are beneath no one, beyond no one and vital to our individual success, cohesive communities and a stronger society. My noble friend Lord Elliott mentioned the late Dolly Parton. Alongside her talents, one of the most important things she had going for her was a stable, strong family background. It was as surprising as it was disappointing to read media reports this week signalling the Social Mobility Commission’s demise. Of course, it is for Ministers to decide how to organise resources to address barriers to social mobility, but perhaps the Minister could tell us how and when she intends to communicate their decision. But whatever the commission’s future, promoting the importance of stable families to children’s future success must be a government priority. We exacerbate inequality when we deny evidence and fail to join obvious dots for fear of causing offence. Most importantly, those who suffer most when we do are in the lowest socioeconomic groups.
Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (CB)
My Lords, I welcome this report, particularly its focus on local areas, and also strongly agree with a number of previous speakers that Blackpool college, the Social Mobility Commission and Alun Francis are really inspirational. There are some important specific recommendations, but I would like to offer a couple of more general—and perhaps somewhat partly downbeat—comments. There is a sizeable academic literature which traces social mobility using very much the same approach as this report, looking at whether someone’s adult occupation and finances are closely related to and predicted by their family of origin. In deciding whether this link is strong or weak, there are two key forces. The first, bluntly, is how well or badly better-off parents are able to protect their children from downward mobility. In a static society, that is critical, because when things are static, if somebody goes up, somebody else is going down. Fortunately, in a dynamic society—or less fortunately, in a collapsing society—what really matters is the whole structure of the labour market. In the last century and a half in this country, it has been the structure of the labour market and therefore the class structure that have been the really important drivers. They have been wonderful. The greatest UK expert on this is Oxford University’s John Goldthorpe, who has done a magisterial analysis of social mobility and education in this country over the last century and a bit. The contrast is quite dramatic. For example, among men born between 1938 and 1947, two-fifths of them were upwardly mobile compared with their families, and only a 10th downward. But in the last 30 to 40 years, this has plummeted. Upward mobility has become less frequent, and downward mobility has become more frequent. This is very much because of the flattening of the labour market structure. What I really want to say in this context is that we must not expect of education what it cannot provide. Of course, all these things are important—they are what I have worked on all my life—but what ultimately will transform social mobility is economic growth, and we have to be realistic about that and to think about that in every local area. I want to say one more thing. I am a little concerned at the tendency—which was visible a bit in this report—to feel that if a 16 year-old is struggling with English and maths, we should just forget it. I know that is hugely oversimplistic, but there is something of that in some of the witnesses’ evidence. The new qualifications coming in for 16 to 18 year-olds, which are pre GCSE, will be important. But the most important vocational skills by miles in a modern economy are maths and English. If you doubt this, you can look at the sterling work done by DfE statisticians, which is also pretty magisterial.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, this is one of those debates where the report, as the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, described, seems to address only certain aspects of the issue. But as she also described, if it did not, we would be here all week. We are looking at key aspects, among which we have concentrated on the rise of the NEET. We have paid attention to NEETs, and this debate is rather an extension of one I was in yesterday. The rise of the NEET is something that we have identified for over a decade at least. They are a group of people who do not become involved in education or work. Something has happened in our society that makes this possible. Covid undoubtably accelerated the process slightly—it may have even established it—but it was already there. There is something about the way that we are structuring our education and society that is encouraging this group to grow. I hope that we can start to address it properly. We will not do that by repeating the policies of the last decade ad nauseam; we will have to change something. I always go back to special educational needs and dyslexia, and if the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, had a small bet with herself that I would raise it, she has won it. It comes to, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, raised, English and maths. The Latin origin of the word dyslexia—no, it is Greek. Sorry, I did not do classics. The Greek origin of the word translates to a problem with words. It is not; it is a problem with processing, which expresses itself in problems with literacy and reading—more prominently writing than reading, which are two separate skills. Maths is a language, and processing problems can express themselves there. Many of the solutions we have found are in encouraging and immersing people in the subject. You tend to scan read, so you get a new function. In the modern world, we use technology to produce literature and to communicate. I have not yet met anybody who would object to somebody talking to a computer to get communication going, as opposed to tapping a keyboard. If there is somebody, they probably will be waiting for me at the end of the debate, but I will have very short shrift for them. Please, can we start to establish what is needed with literacy and mathematics? In training and so on, we have found that for all these groups, if you test them on the language or the maths that they are going to use in their career, they do better. Please, can we address that and work it in? The level 1 qualification, which was hinted at by the last Government and now seems to be being implemented, may well be enough for a person to go through the rest of their training. Could we please work that in? Could we make sure that everybody uses a computer all the time? In the past, I have raised that, in terms of education, the phone in your pocket may be a distraction because of the technology on it. It also can carry assistive technology. It carries voice operation and a calculator. We may have to do other things, but it is there, it fits in your pocket and we all have them with us. I hope that mine has been switched off. We have to start addressing this differently. When it comes to the process and the system—my noble friend Lady Garden raised this, as she often has before—changing the names of the qualifications may be great, and you may get slightly different qualifications, but let us make sure that they work properly. T-levels had an incredibly bumpy start. Because of the work experience required, there were some courses that nobody finished. V-levels are not as big. Yes, I did find out the figure. It was only one course. The V-level will fit slightly more easily into the existing system, but can we make sure that it works? The BTEC qualification, which has generally been accepted, seems to be the primary target. You are going to get a diverse set of qualifications for a diverse workplace. Even if they have the same name, they will be very different, because they have to be. Can we make sure that we get things that are appropriate and that people have appropriate pathways? The great engine of social mobility, certainly one that was preached to me, was university. At the moment, universities are getting very bad press. You will get in a big debt with it. There is not much support. The Government are taking steps to make sure that they remain attractive. However, universities have also become a sacred cow. We all had to get to university, or half of us had to, and we elbowed out levels 4 and 5 HND and NVQ courses. They were devalued by that drive. Newer universities, when they stopped being polytechnics or colleges, tended to push those aside and dump them. Can we encourage universities to take on some of these level 4 and 5 qualifications? Let us bring them all up to the same social status. Many of them were there, and non-graduating courses are an important part of the history of our universities. Can we bring that in to make sure they have the social status and support they need? We need to make sure they are going through. However, all this is impossible unless you are letting people know what is there, and careers advice is mentioned in the report. It is one of my personal favourites, so I would have liked to see that made a little bigger but hey, you can only do so much. Can we make sure we get this information to the parents or the carers in these groups, because they are the important ones? Some of those we are talking about here may not have people who are engaged in this. It is about social mobility; if you come from a group which has low attainment in academia, you are less likely to acquire it yourself. You are also less likely to acquire somebody who is pushing you forward to do it. Have the Government given any thought to how you get people to engage with that advice, or give it properly, to make sure that from a fairly early age you know what the options are? Age 16 is effectively too late in this context. You have to get somebody who is geared up and prepared to take on that effort, that investment of time, energy and money, to get themselves there, particularly if you do not find it easy or you have extra problems. I refer back to my comments on dyslexia; other special educational needs are available, I am told. Can we make sure that we actually have somebody who knows what is going on, and structures to try to reach people? This is not easy. We are talking about parents who may have found that their own educational experience was something best forgotten. If we can start to do that, much of the work of this Government and the previous ones becomes, shall we say, so much easier. That engagement will lead us to some real results. It is a big ask, but I hope the Minister will give us a positive response and tell us how this is at least being started.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, for leading this debate, and I thank all members of the Social Mobility Policy Committee for producing such a thoughtful and important report. Its title, Local Roots, Lasting Change , captures particularly well the central point that I want to focus on today. As the noble Baroness said in her introduction, this subject matter could not be more important. Noble Lords who have taken part in the debate have raised many key points. I promise your Lordships I will not repeat them, but I will just list them so that we all understand them: the size and the scale of the problem; the relevance to that scale of those who are economically inactive; and the economy. If we know nothing else, it is that only employers create jobs. The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, made the very important point that the best way to have an impact on social mobility is to have a robust economy. Long may we get one. There is also the impact of operating costs on business, the business rate increase, and the VAT and national insurance contribution increase. Vacancies are through the floor, and if there are no vacancies, although we can prepare young people for work, where will they get it? The one thing that has come out loud and clear is the importance of data—as I learned when I was at the DWP under the direction of my noble friend Lady Coffey. When you understand the data and when you can analyse it, you know best where to focus your efforts. I consider data to be absolutely critical. Turning to place and partnerships, my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, alongside others, raised the importance of place. I always say that anything we deliver must be known nationally, designed and delivered locally, and felt personally. I ask the Minister—who may not be able to do this, but I will ask anyway—to be brave about budgets. Spend the money where you get the best outcomes. When I was running my charity, Tomorrow’s People, we were sponsored by Diageo, which decided to conduct an analysis of our work to see what we were delivering. The outputs were phenomenal and the cost per job was phenomenal. When he was compiling his report, Alan Milburn asked organisations he met, “What is the impact of the work that you do? What do you deliver? What are the outcomes?” He said he was astounded that so many of them could not say. Let us fully endorse the point made by my noble friend Lord Young about trailblazers placing budgets locally rather than centrally. We may then see some lasting impact on the lives of the young people we are trying to help. One thing that has not been raised today—I am not criticising, as it was not in the report—is the importance of having a mentor. Some of our young people have a mum and a dad and a granddad at home who encourage them. They do not just tell the young person what it was like in their day; they encourage them to do well and give them advice. The young people I have dealt with have no hope. How does it feel to go home after being on a programme and say to a parent or guardian, “I’m going to get a job” and they say, “For goodness’ sake, don’t do that”. What can we do when young people are given this information? It flattens them all the time. I give credit to a lady I used to employ, who loved the young people she worked with so much. I am not saying that others do not, but she loved them. She would take them to job interviews. I remember this lady standing outside an employer’s premises with a young person and she said, “Take your jacket off and wear mine. You’ll look better”. It was that level. When she got a call in the middle of the night from a young person from the police station because they were in a pickle, what did she do? She got dressed and went to the police station to get them out. There are some young people who have this level of support, and some who do not. We need services and people to get them on the right road, but we also need them to keep them there. That would be right. The noble Lord, Lord Crisp, made the point about having a primary school teacher—I can still remember mine—who knows their pupils, but the pupils move on. It is critical that a young person works with someone who knows them and stays with them. Getting a young person into work is an output; keeping them there is an outcome. That is where we need to be. I have talked about the cost of employing people, so I will not go on to that. I want to be robust in my points about the Social Mobility Commission. What an organisation it is and what great things it has added. It is led by Alun Francis, a great giant of social mobility—my noble friend Lady Stowell has already explained his impact. The work in Blackpool is a credit to him and his team, and a blueprint for others to build on and adapt to the place they are in. They have data, and I am convinced of their use. Can I ask, in the nicest terms, what the Minister is thinking about: getting rid of them or taking them out? If that is correct, please can the Minister explain it? [ Interruption. ] I am delighted to hear that. We do not believe everything we read in the newspaper—I should have learned that lesson by now. Can the Minister tell us whether she is planning to get rid of them, and how will young people benefit from that? Let me ask the Minister some other questions. Where a mayor or local authority can demonstrate clear leadership, strong partnerships and the capacity to deliver, will the Government transfer real control over skills, employment, careers provision and budgets, or will Whitehall continue to hold the levers while asking local leaders to carry responsibility? How will the Government ensure that areas outside mayoral combined authorities—especially rural and coastal communities, where the barriers are often most severe—are not left behind? What is the plan for those places that do not fit neatly into the Government’s preferred devolution model? The committee places significant responsibility on the DWP, jobcentres and the proposed jobs and careers service. Will local leaders have meaningful influence over DWP and jobcentre budgets? Will those budgets be capable of being pooled with local skills funding? Will the Government provide multi-year settlements rather than expecting long-term partnerships to be built on short-term pilots? Given that economic inactivity now accounts for the majority of NEETs, what action will the Government take on the growing number of young people who face no work requirements when claiming incapacity benefit—a feature not shared by countries with lower NEET rates? Does the Minister accept the findings of the Resolution Foundation’s report Lost in Transition ? If so, what reforms might follow? Finally, vacancies are falling, costs are rising and employers are becoming more cautious. What is the Government’s plan to increase the demand for young workers? How will they ensure that Saturday jobs and junior roles—the first chance to prove yourself—do not continue to disappear? Unless the Government can answer these questions clearly, devolution risks becoming little more than the administration of centrally designed programmes, and young people will continue to pay the price. We owe them more.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Manningham-Buller, for both her leadership of the committee and securing this debate. I thank the committee for the careful and constructive way in which it considered the issues about which we have talked today and which are reflected so well in the report. There is no excuse for the time taken by the Government to respond; I am sorry for that. The inquiry goes to the heart of a question that should concern every part of government and this House: how can we ensure that background, geography or early disadvantage do not determine a young person’s future? The committee rightly calls for stronger local partnerships, better data, earlier support for those who are at risk of becoming NEET, clearer routes through education and training, and closer links between skills and employment. The Government share those aims. We may differ on some aspects of delivery, but we are united in wanting every young person, wherever they live, to participate, progress and build a good life. Yet too many still leave education without a secure route into further learning, training or work. The task that we have started, therefore, is to build a nationally coherent but locally responsive system that works around the learner, supports local growth and expands opportunity in every part of the country. The debate and the report have rightly placed a strong focus on place and devolution. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, has identified, the Prime Minister has set out a very clear approach to the way in which we will rewire the state and go far further than ever before in devolving power and budgets to those places that, with greater understanding and bigger ability, will be able both to bring together agencies in the way described by the noble Baroness and to deliver on local priorities. The Government will set out more detail on how that will work in a White Paper in the autumn. Every young person should be able to see a clear pathway from education into further learning, skilled employment and adult life. Academic, technical and vocational education will be complementary parts of one high-quality offer. As we recently announced, new technical pathways from age 14 will reflect local needs, giving young people earlier access to technical skills, work experience and employers. Here again, regional mayors, schools, colleges and employers will shape those pathways around local industries and growth sectors—from advanced manufacturing, AI and digital technology to clean energy, life sciences, construction, health and care and the creative industries. Mayors will have the powers, flexibility and accountability to bring education, employment, health and local support closer together. We will work with strategic authorities, providers, employers and local government to implement this approach and to ensure that new freedoms translate into better routes to apprenticeships, higher education, high-level skills and employment. Some noble Lords who contributed today also contributed yesterday to a lengthy debate on many of these issues. I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, that it was a debate initiated by a Labour Peer. However, whether in yesterday’s discussion or today’s, there is a common recognition that we face a serious challenge with the numbers of young people who are neither earning nor learning. Almost 1 million young people are in that position. That is not simply a statistic. It represents individual young lives, their ambitions and the potential for them to be held back. That is why we commissioned Alan Milburn to examine the deep-seated drivers of youth inactivity, unemployment and sickness. His interim report was a clear call to action. We will consider the recommendations from the next phase of his work carefully. However, we are not waiting. Across the DfE and the DWP, the Get Britain Working White Paper and the Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper set out a joined-up approach to participation, skills and employment. An important guiding principle is that prevention is better than cure. Once a young person becomes disconnected, re-engagement is much harder. We are therefore strengthening the role of school in supporting successful post-16 transitions so that every young person leaves with a clear destination and those most at risk receive timely help. We are also piloting a post-16 backstop to connect young people without a confirmed place or plan quickly with appropriate educational training, with the wraparound support needed to stay engaged. While it was not the topic of this report, the noble Lord, Lord Winston, is right about the significance of early years and primary and the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, is right that we need to focus on key stage 3 in the early years of secondary, which we are doing. The report is also right that better data is central to that effort. Too often problems are identified only after a young person has disengaged. Through the Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper , we are investing in risk of NEET indicator tools, improving data sharing and strengthening attendance monitoring in further education. When young people are outside work or education, we constrain labour supply, limit productivity and store up long-term costs for individuals, the Exchequer and the economy. That is why the Government are investing an additional £2.5 billion over three years into the youth guarantee and the growth and skills levy to support nearly 1 million young people and unlock up to 500,000 jobs, training and learning opportunities and 300,000 work experience places as part of that. The committee rightly stresses that social mobility is often delivered locally, as I have referenced. Blackpool shows what can happen when leaders have the right data, can convene partners and can act early. The youth guarantee trailblazers are testing innovative local approaches to supporting young people into education, training and employment. However, one of the reasons why we will not necessarily continue those trailblazers in the same format is that, having learned some of the lessons, we are determined that they inform wider policy. We have introduced a national youth guarantee but will ensure that it is delivered in a way that enables local and regional design and use of the links that need to be made between employment support, apprenticeships and education. We do not believe that one model can be imposed everywhere. It is absolutely right to say that the barriers facing a coastal town, rural community, post-industrial area or major city differ, but the best local practice should shape national reform. Prevention must also be matched by a post-16 system that is clear, high-quality and understood by learners, parents, employers and providers. That is why our reforms will create three clear level 3 routes and, importantly, new level 2 pathways will provide clearer stepping stones for students. The committee also raised English and maths. Those skills are essential for work, further study and wider life, but repeated resits can become a barrier rather than a bridge. That is why the Curriculum and Assessment Review has emphasised strong foundations in reading, writing and maths, alongside improvements at key stage 3, and we are introducing new 16 to 19 level 1 English and maths qualifications, helping students to consolidate and build the foundation of knowledge that will enable them to progress. Apprenticeships are an essential route into opportunity. That is why we are prioritising youth starts through the growth and skills levy to reverse the 40% decline in starts by young people over the past decade. We will now fully fund apprenticeships for 16 to 24 year-olds for employers of all sizes. From 1 October, eligible small businesses will also receive a £2,000 payment when they recruit an apprentice aged 16 to 24. As I said, the youth guarantee will also expand work experience and training placements, work coach support and pathways into employment, apprenticeships, further learning and workplace training. Careers education, information, advice and guidance must sit alongside these reforms, as the report makes clear. Through the Careers & Enterprise Company, a national network of careers hubs reaches the great majority of secondary schools and colleges in England, connecting young people with employers, local labour market opportunities and informed choices about their next steps. Higher education remains another important route into opportunity. We want everybody with the desire and aptitude to enter it to be empowered to do so, but access gaps remain too wide. Through Uni Connect and the Office for Students’ wider work on access and participation, we are supporting stronger local collaboration to connect people’s ambitions with opportunities and skills needs in their communities, creating clearer pathways from education into good employment. The access and participation task and finish group is developing proposals for students from disadvantaged backgrounds and underserved areas, with its work continuing through to January 2027. Maintenance loans have now risen by 2.71% for the 2026-27 academic year; we will of course reintroduce maintenance grants to support young people into higher education. The committee is right that this must be a genuinely cross-government effort. Skills, employment support, welfare, health, local growth and social mobility cannot be treated as separate silos. As Skills Minister across DfE and DWP, I am driving a joined-up approach through the youth guarantee, the Jobs and Careers Service, apprenticeships and skills reform and support for young people on universal credit, as well as the work reforming the curriculum and supporting further and higher education. As a Government, we are working with strategic authorities, local authorities, schools, colleges, employers and the voluntary sector, because improving opportunity requires concerted action at every level. Our task is to move more young people from inactivity into opportunity, with the confidence to take their next step, the skills to enter work and the chance to fulfil their potential, while supplying the talent our economy needs to grow. I thank noble Lords on the committee for their work, which rightly challenges the Government to go further and faster, and we will take up that challenge.
Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)
I am very grateful for the positive reaction to our report around the House, even if some noble Lords understandably emphasised some slightly different things and where they think the committee has not quite got the emphasis right. I wondered whether, as I am speaking at the end, I would want to challenge anything anybody had said, but actually I think pretty well all the contributions have been helpful, constructive and have supported what we have been trying to say. This is not surprising. Many noble Lords came into politics or, in my case and others, into public service, to improve the lives of our people. What we were looking at was a tremendous waste: people becoming a drain on the economy rather than contributing to it. I am encouraged today by the number of people across the House who agree that this is of critical importance. I have to say that I am rather closer to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, than the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, on maths and English, having had substantial problems passing maths myself. This did not prevent me running a charity that, at the time I left, had a budget of £30 billion—despite my lack of numeracy, not because of my fiscal skills. When 40% of young people fail GCSE maths and English, we must have a slightly different approach. That is not to say that these skills are not very important, and we must have high expectations of people rather than dumb down, but we need to think of different ways of doing it. I welcome what the Government are saying. Those of us on the committee and others will watch and hope and challenge. I will end with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham: please loosen the apron strings. It is not just delivery locally, or money and power; it is also encouraging local freedom on policy, because that is where we felt the change would come.
Lord Addington (LD)
Before the noble Baroness sits down, I must apologise to the House. I forgot to declare my interest as chair of Microlink plc, which deals in assistive technology.
Motion agreed.
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Source: UK Parliament Hansard API. Debate ID: 5398568.