Over the next two years, spending on education, skills and communities will rise by well over £10 billion. Yesterday’s new opportunities White Paper showed how we will deliver that investment across people’s lives to help families turn the aspirations of today into future success.
I welcome the publication of the White Paper yesterday. Eleven years into a Labour Government, some families are still caught in a cycle of deprivation and face intergenerational poverty and worklessness. Apart from some of the big initiatives that the Government have introduced, such as extending nursery education and introducing Sure Start, what else can my right hon. Friend and the Government do to break these cycles of deprivation?
Yesterday’s White Paper set out a very simple argument—that if we make the right investments today we can capture for this country a big share of the 1 billion skilled jobs that will be created around the world over the next 20 years. If we are to open those jobs to anybody who is prepared to work hard and has got a bit of drive and determination, we have to invest right across people’s lives, in families and in communities. That is why we are determined to open up free nursery education to two-year-olds, why we are determined to see better teachers in schools, starting with our most challenged schools, and why we are determined to expand the number of apprenticeships to 250,000, to give more young people the chance to go to university, and to bring workplace investment in training up to £1 billion a year by 2011. That is how we can expand social mobility in this country, and it is why we will continue the pace of reform after three decades under the Conservative party when social mobility in this country did not move a bit.
Given that it would be unconstructive, flippant and just plain wrong to dismiss a commitment to greater social mobility as being somehow a commitment to a class war, I say to the right hon. Gentleman that I warmly welcome the publication of the White Paper on social mobility, together with the appointment of the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn) to chair the commission on new opportunities. Should the right hon. Gentleman not be encouraged to explore every practical means by which we can ensure that more people from poor socio-economic backgrounds who are able can scale the professional peaks in far greater numbers than they do at present?
I very much welcome that support. As ever, it was a thoughtful contribution from the hon. Gentleman. He is right to say that we all need to do more to open access to professions, including opening access in this place to the profession of professional politician. Surely there is more that we can do as Members of this House to show our constituents, particularly those from lower socio-economic groups, how they can get on in a career in public service and politics, thereby making a contribution to the future success of this country.
In congratulating my right hon. Friend on the delivery of yesterday’s White Paper, may I urge him to ensure that during the deliberations that take place in the next few months, people work throughout government to ensure that early intervention works effectively for those children who need it most and who are most vulnerable, so that we can say in the next decade that those who start with the poorest opportunities are able to make their way in our society in Britain?
I should put on record my thanks and congratulations to my right hon. Friend for the work that she did when she had my job in pioneering family nurse partnerships and bringing help, education, advice and support to some of the most vulnerable parents in this country and their children. This Government are proud of the fact that we have invested £25 billion in early years education. It is clear from the evidence that the more we invest wisely in our children’s early years, the greater their later success. [Interruption.] That is why the Government are committed not, as the Opposition propose, to cutting £200 million from Sure Start, but to expanding the reach of those services in the years to come. [Interruption.]
Order. There is far too much noise in the Chamber. It is unfair to hon. Members who are here for this part of the business.
The independent Social Mobility Commission, whose report was also published this week, showed that poor quality and overcrowded housing is a key cause of entrenching social disadvantage. After 11 years of this Government, social housing has been so depleted and waiting lists are so long that one family in my constituency have been told that they are going to have to wait more than 10 years before they can move to a larger property. Their two children will grow up into their teens in a one-bedroom flat, sharing with their parents. What hope can the Minister give children in that situation, whose life chances are being destroyed by a failure of housing policy?
I, too, welcome the analysis that the Liberal Democrats published this week. The hon. Lady is right to say that not only do we have to increase investment throughout individuals’ lives—in early years, in schools, in apprenticeships, in giving more kids the chance to go to university and in workplace learning—but we have to invest in families and in communities. Better social housing is at the core of that prognosis, which is why we remain determined to renew 3 million homes in the years to come. That, together with new investment in schools, the £35 billion we propose to spend on Building Schools for the Future and record investment in the national health service, gives us the chance in this country not only to renew our civic fabric, but to strengthen opportunities and life chances for generations to come.