Starmer lacks ‘coherent’ social mobility plan, says advisory body chair | Social mobility

Keir Starmer has no “coherent” strategy to tackle deep-rooted inequalities that are damaging the life chances of millions of people, the government’s social mobility commissioner has said.

A major official report last week warned that young adults in Britain’s former industrial heartlands were being attacked. left behind as a result of failed or abandoned promises by successive governments.

The Social Mobility Commission (SMC), the government’s advisory body, said major cities such as Manchester, Edinburgh and Bristol were starting to improve but opportunities were “overly concentrated”.

In an interview with the Guardian, commission chairman Alun Francis called on Starmer to outline a bold vision to solve “the defining social mobility problem of our generation”.

He said: “We have a government that talks a lot about social mobility but mainly about individuals – often [the] their own or their colleagues’ social mobility… But what we don’t have is a coherent approach to social mobility as a useful concept around which you can build a strategy.”

Francis’ warning comes as pressure mounts on the government over its approach to social mobility after last week’s SMC report described worse childhood conditions, fewer job opportunities and a lack of growth in former industrial communities, and new figures showed the sharpest rise in youth unemployment for three years. With almost 1 million young people out of education, work and training, critics say the government has failed to put forward a plan that would brighten their prospects before the next election.

Francis praised the government’s devolution and housing policies, but said welfare reform and other proposals were “stop-start.”

“We have other policies that we’re not sure where we’re going, like growth, improving education,” he said.

Francis said Labour’s skills policy and industrial strategy were a step forward but there was no “overarching narrative” to bring all these elements together.

He said without an overall strategy the government “will struggle to address some of these issues and not have a clear view of what we can do to improve things”.

He also warned that without a “universal perspective” on what social mobility means, it risks being subsumed by diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies; It’s an agenda that Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has described as “woke” and has vowed to dismantle.

“It has kind of become part of DEI to some extent because it has some of those aspects,” he said. “However [social mobility] It’s not actually a DEI policy. “This is more about an economic and social policy that aims to bring the benefits to everyone.”

SMC’s annual report has been published last weekIt comes as official statistics showed the number of unemployed people rose by 85,000 young people in the three months to October.

If you come from a disadvantaged background and have low qualifications, the risk of not being able to benefit from education, employment and training (Neet) is more than double. The Neets rate is highest in the north-east and northwest of England, followed by the East Midlands and West Midlands.

Former health secretary Alan Milburn said it was a “national disgrace… social injustice and an economic disaster”. It was announced last week that he will lead a major review into the reasons why young people remain unemployed or uneducated.

Francis, who was appointed by the Cabinet Office in January 2023, said successive governments had been too focused on “quick fixes” and frenzied pressure from Westminster, leading to “constant changes of direction”. He added: “Without this narrative about social mobility, you have many disjointed aspects of policy and no way to bring them together into a coherent whole.”

A government spokesman said: “Approximately 1 million young people in England are neither in education, employment nor training. This number has been rising for four years.

“This is a crisis we cannot ignore and we asked Alan Milburn to help us build a system that supports young people and understands the root causes of youth unemployment.

“We are bringing forward the biggest employment reforms in a generation and Alan Milburn’s review will ensure every young person is given the opportunity to make something of their life.”