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NICK TIMOTHY

Why is education chief Justine Greening so immobile on social mobility?

For Tories, the idea that everyone should have the chance to go as far as they can in life, regardless of where they're from is an important part of their identity

I WANT to tell you a secret about the Tories: most of them aren’t very posh. Theresa May grew up in a vicarage and David Davis was raised on a council estate.

Justine Greening and Gavin Williamson attended their local comprehensives. Sajid Javid is the son of a bus driver.

 Justine Greening’s Social Mobility Action Plan was disappointing and full of jargon
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Justine Greening’s Social Mobility Action Plan was disappointing and full of jargonCredit: PA:Press Association

For Conservatives, the idea that everyone should have the chance to go as far as they can in life, regardless of where they are from – what the policy wonks call “social mobility” – is an important part of their identity.

Tories tend to believe that because Labour are fixated by their desire for equality, they level everything downwards. Only Conservatives, they argue, can help people to achieve their full potential.

Of course no political party is uniquely capable of improving social mobility.

In education, for example, because of Labour’s relationship with the teaching unions, the Conservatives are the better school reformers. But Labour’s willingness to spend more can sometimes help.

 The PM grew up in a vicarage and social mobility is an important part Conservative identity
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The PM grew up in a vicarage and social mobility is an important part Conservative identityCredit: PA:Press Association

While spending money wisely is as important as how much you spend, Tony Blair’s investment in childcare, for example, was a good thing, especially for women on lower wages.

Social mobility in Britain, however, is stalling. According to the Social Mobility Commission, “for this generation of young people in particular,” it is “getting worse not better.”

Only one in six people who were on low pay ten years ago have escaped low-paid work. Meanwhile, the top professions remain the preserve of the privileged: only six per cent of doctors, for example, come from working class families.

Some policies are moving in the right direction. Conservative school reforms mean English children are better educated than ever before. Our primary schools are climbing the international league tables, and nearly two million more pupils attend good or outstanding schools than in 2010.

 Conservative reforms mean English children are better educated than ever before
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Conservative reforms mean English children are better educated than ever beforeCredit: Alamy

Improving schools, however, is not enough, because the factors behind our stalling social mobility are complex.

Home ownership is one of the crucial foundations for a socially mobile society. Yet the chance of owning your own home has been falling since before the financial crash. Our housing market is now so broken that more people in England now own their home outright than pay a mortgage.

The labour market is changing fast and in worrying ways. We have more people in work than ever before, but after inflation average wages are lower than they were ten years ago.

About three and a half million people say they would like to work more hours, but they cannot find the work. Estimates suggest that almost half of existing jobs are vulnerable to new technology.

Young people have it especially bad. If they go to university, they emerge with average debts of £50,000 – the highest in the world.

For the majority of young people who don’t go to university, we have completely inadequate technical education.

This is why Justine Greening’s Social Mobility Action Plan, released last week, was disappointing. Full of jargon but short on meaningful policies, it would have been better left unpublished.

There was no attempt to analyse any of the problems I have just listed, nor the trends – like globalisation, changing technology, our ageing society, and the fall-out from the financial crash – that cause many of them.

 

 Michael Gove’s 'no excuses' culture that has improved English schools
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Michael Gove’s 'no excuses' culture that has improved English schoolsCredit: PA:Press Association

On education, Greening is slowing down successful policies she inherited. There has been no new round of free school applications since before the election, and the Department for Education seems reluctant to implement the Government’s proposals to encourage universities and independent schools to sponsor state schools.

One of the Action Plan’s proposals – to ensure teachers and heads “get full credit” from inspectors for working in tough schools – means bad schools will be given better ratings than they merit because they serve poorer communities.

That is the very opposite of Michael Gove’s “no excuses” culture that has improved English schools.
What could the Tories do to turbocharge social mobility instead?

A dramatic improvement in technical education would be a good start. The Government’s existing proposals are too limited and too slow.

Ministers should be prepared to convert a number of universities into institutes of technology and reform tuition fees so young people get a meaningful choice between academic and technical education. As part of a tuition fees review, they should reduce fees.

They should ensure the national retraining programme is more ambitious, so people in jobs that are endangered by technology get the skills that will keep them in work.

They should introduce new rights and protections for people working in the precarious “gig economy”. Instead of slowing down school reform, they should press on with plans to get good new sponsors, like universities and independent schools, into the state system.

They should improve access to childcare and do even more to get more houses built.

What should the Tories be doing?

  • Turn some universities into tech colleges
  • Cut tuition fees
  • Improve retraining for people whose jobs are threatened by tech
  • New rights for ‘gig economy’ workers
  • Speed up school reform with sponsors such as unis and private schools
  • Intervene in flawed markets to stop firms ripping people off
  • Do more to build homes
  • Tax accumulated wealth more, tax working families less

They should intervene in dysfunctional markets to stop firms ripping off customers and reduce bills.

The Government should be prepared to redistribute more through the tax system: from the wealthy to working families with modest incomes.

They should be prepared to increase taxes on accumulated wealth so they can cut taxes on income. They could raise more money through inheritance tax.

They could abolish stamp duty and instead charge capital gains tax on house sales, helping young people on modest incomes.

It may be politically difficult, but at some point pensioner benefits, like the winter fuel allowance, will need to be means-tested and the triple lock – which has increased the state pension faster than workers’ wages – will need to end.

Many Tories would find some of these measures too radical.

But if they really want to make the Conservatives the party of social mobility, and make Britain the world’s Great Meritocracy, they will have to overcome their ideological assumptions – and do the right thing for the country.

  • Political adviser Nick Timothy was Theresa May’s Downing Street Joint Chief of Staff from 2016 to 2017.
Education Secretary Justine Greening announces school funding will increase with inflation