Social Mobility campaign gathers pace

Chloe Smith, MP for Norwich North, last week met with the Centre for Social Justice and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to discuss how best to tackle poverty in our society.

 

Over the last decade, the question of how we measure and define poverty has become politically contentious.  

 

The recent Welfare Reform and Work Bill contains provisions to replace an old relative income definition with a new life chances measures of worklessness and educational attainment. Annual reporting on these new measures will ensure Government is focussing action in the areas that the evidence shows are most important for children's life chances. The Government will still publish official data annually on low incomes in the Households Below Average Income statistics.

 

Relative income measures used in the past meant that if average incomes fell during a recession the statistics would incorrectly indicate a fall in poverty.

 

The Bill comes alongside the introduction next month of the new National Living Wage. Someone currently on the minimum wage will see their pay rise by a third over the course of this Parliament. At the same time, the new Universal Credit system will ensure it always pays to go out to work, and raising the income tax personal allowance to £11,000 will allow all of us to keep more of the money we earn. Significant increases in the childcare support available for working parents will also make it easier to combine work with raising a family.

 

Commenting on the meeting and the topic of measuring poverty, Chloe said:

 

“Ensuring work pays is fundamental in the fight against poverty. I was grateful for the opportunity to meet with Joseph Rowntree and the Centre for Social Justice, both of whom have a proven reputation in this field.

 

“Experience has taught us that setting targets based on relative income fails to address the underlying causes of poverty. Rather, it led the previous Labour Government to simply spend more and more money on income transfers to lift people just over the poverty threshold, without doing anything about why those people were in poverty in the first place.

 

“I welcome the move to a life chances measure of poverty, which better reflects the challenge and what it means to people’s lives. In plain English, social mobility means nothing should stand in your way if you want to change your life.  It means no one has to do what their parents did; everyone should have access to the opportunities to break out if they want to.

 

“Locally I have made it a priority of mine to boost social mobility in Norwich, following the publication of a report suggesting a child from a poor background would have lower life chances here than elsewhere in England.”

 

Last week’s meeting follows on from discussions between Chloe and the Government’s Social Mobility Director, Kathryn Laing, and Policy Expert, Jodie Smith, to discuss how childcare can be used to close the attainment gap and boost life chances. 

 

Chloe has taken up the battle in Parliament, calling a debate on the report, putting questions to Ministers, and regularly meeting with experts in the field.  In Norwich, Chloe is preparing to host a roundtable of local and regional MPs, Council Leaders, Head Teachers, the Bishop of Norwich, the Vice Chancellor of UEA, the Job Centre and the Local Enterprise Partnership.  Chloe has argued that every child in Norwich, whatever their background should have the knowledge, skills, confidence and networks to succeed. Her social mobility campaign builds on the success of the Norwich for Jobs project, founded during the last parliament, which has helped to halve youth unemployment in our city.

 

Chloe added:

 

“Poverty and life chances are big issues which affect the whole of Norwich, so with the City Council and many others we need to work together, across party, across government and across the public, private and charity sectors if we are to secure the best future for our children here in Norwich.”