Clegg quizzed on Social Mobility

• [Apr 05] Harriet Harman (Leader of the Opposition; Camberwell and Peckham, Labour): (Urgent Question): TO ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will make a statement on the Government's social mobility strategy.

Nicholas Clegg (Deputy Prime Minister, Lord President of the Council; Sheffield, Hallam, Liberal Democrat): Today, the Government are launching their strategy to improve social mobility. While our most urgent task is to sort out the nation's finances, our overriding mission is to take real steps towards a fairer society. To us, a fair society is an open society, one in which everyone is free to flourish and rise regardless of the circumstances of their birth. That is why the promotion of social mobility is the principal objective of the coalition Government's social policy.

It is simply unacceptable that so many of our children have their life chances shaped by the circumstances of their birth. Gaps in development between children from different backgrounds can be detected even at birth. By the age of five, bright children from poorer backgrounds have been overtaken by less bright children from richer ones-and from this point on, the gaps tend to widen still further.

That is why this Government are taking a life-cycle approach to social mobility, an approach where we seek to remove the obstacles to mobility at each stage of an individual's life-hence our new entitlements for free pre-school care for all two-year-olds from disadvantaged families and our pupil premium designed to narrow attainment gaps in the school years. Then we are creating an extra quarter of a million apprenticeships to boost mobility in the labour market, and opening up higher education so that children from all backgrounds can have the chance to go to university and end the scandal whereby the one in five children who are eligible for free school meals make up less than one in 100 entering Oxford and Cambridge.

We will continue to encourage fair access to jobs during adulthood and, in particular, we are tackling the long-standing problems caused by unpaid internships dominated by those from the most affluent backgrounds. The civil service is leading by example, and today my colleague Baroness Warsi announced an end to unfair informal internships in Whitehall. We are signing up companies and other organisations to a new business compact on social mobility, asking business to do its bit. It should be what you know, not who you know, that helps you to get a foot in the door.

We recognise, of course, that Government alone cannot single-handedly create a fairer society. It is a task for parents, communities, businesses, professions and voluntary organisations too. This is not just a Government mission; it is a national mission, and I hope that Opposition Members will support our drive to tackle the long-standing problems of social immobility in this country.

Low levels of social mobility clearly exact a high social price by cramping the opportunities of millions of children, but they damage our economy too, because talented individuals are denied the opportunity to develop their full potential. Of course it is not enough just to talk about social mobility. We need clear measures and a mechanism for accountability, and our strategy sets out a clear framework for holding the Government to account on our ambitious proposals. We are creating a new statutory social mobility and child poverty commission to assess progress on child poverty and social mobility, to hold Government and others to account, and to act as an advocate for change. We have developed a set of leading indicators which will be used to track progress towards a more mobile society. For the first time, as Departments develop new policies, they will need to consider the impact on social mobility. I will continue to chair a group of Ministers to maintain the momentum for change.

Today's strategy sets out the concrete steps that the Government are taking to promote social mobility and an open and fair society. There are many policy and technical challenges in this area, and I am grateful for the support of Members in all parts of the House. Of course it is true that most people do not sit around talking about inter-generational social mobility, but at the heart of our strategy is a common instinct. It is the most natural feeling in the world for any parent to want their children to have the opportunities that they did not, and we can all agree that-as I said earlier-in a fair society what counts is how hard you work, not how much your parents earn. In a fair society, ability trumps privilege, and that is the society that the Government want to build.

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Harriet Harman (Leader of the Opposition; Camberwell and Peckham, Labour): I am afraid that the Deputy Prime Minister gave up the right to pontificate on social mobility when he abolished the educational maintenance allowance, trebled tuition fees and betrayed a generation of young people. When I heard that he was going to launch a commission on social mobility, I thought that it was April Fools day. In just 10 months this Tory-led Government have launched an assault on opportunities for young people, especially the poorest.

Will the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that the new Office for Fair Access has no teeth? It is presiding over soaring youth unemployment, so why have the Government abolished the future jobs fund? For many young people, mobility now means a bus down to the jobcentre. Families with young children are feeling the squeeze, so why have the Government cut tax credits? The first few years are vital to a child's prospects, so why have they cut Sure Start?

The Deputy Prime Minister boasts about the pupil premium, but will he admit that the Government are cutting school budgets? He claims that he wants to improve social mobility, so why has he dropped section 1 of the Equality Act 2010, which would have legislated for all public authorities to play their part in narrowing the gap between rich and poor? In opposition he said that the Act did not go far enough, but now he is dancing to the tune of the Tories. Next he will be foxtrotting down to the Tory party's fundraising ball, auctioning City internships for the children of the highest bidder. Is that not the Government's idea of social mobility? We have further to go, but they are turning the clock back.

The Deputy Prime Minister says that he is on a mission to improve social mobility. Curiously, whenever he is on a mission to achieve something, the very opposite seems to happen. His support for EMAs saw them abolished, his determination to end tuition fees saw them trebled, and his commitment to no VAT rise resulted in a hike to 20%. Is there not a very important lesson here? If you care about something, the very last person whom you want on your side is the Deputy Prime Minister. He may be a man on a mission, but with him at the helm, it is mission impossible.

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• Nicholas Clegg : I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Lady for her calm, objective comments on the Government's social mobility strategy. May I just point out a little bit of context for her? Under Labour, in the last 13 years public spending more than doubled in cash terms from £300 billion in 1997-98 to over £600 billion in 2010, yet social mobility did not increase at all. When are she and her colleagues going to ask themselves some fundamental questions about why, despite all that extra public spending-they had money to spend; they have deprived us of that luxury-social mobility did not increase at all? We are trying to tackle this difficult dilemma: increased public spending does not, in and of itself, increase opportunity and social mobility. That is the serious question with which I hoped she would engage.

Secondly, there is nothing just, and it will not help social mobility at all, in saddling our children and grandchildren with this generation's debts. I cannot for the life of me understand how the-

Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland, Labour): Calm down!

• Nicholas Clegg : No, I am worked up by the idea that the Labour party thinks that it is honest and right by the children and grandchildren of Great Britain to say that, according to the Labour deficit reduction plan, £14 billion-worth of cuts should be unveiled tomorrow-yet it has not had the decency to tell people where those cuts would fall. The right hon. and learned Lady's leader recently went to Hyde park and emulated Martin Luther King. I never heard Martin Luther King say, "I have a dream; we need cuts, but a little less and more slowly than the other lot want." We have got to engage in this seriously. This is a long-term project which requires a long-term approach.

On the education maintenance allowance, let me repeat the clarification I gave earlier: we are replacing the untargeted EMA with a targeted bursary fund- [Interruption.] Andy Burnham is yelling about this proposition from a sedentary position, but a former Labour Home Secretary himself conceded that EMA was always going to change as the compulsory education age rose to 17. We have put in place an annual bursary of £180 million for 12,000 of the most vulnerable young people, which is equivalent to about £38 a week. More money will go to 12,000 students, including young people who are in care or who have left care, those living independently, those whose parents have died, those with disabilities and teenage parents. That is our commitment to targeting help at those who most need it.

On fees- [Interruption.] Well, let me give the right hon. Gentleman some figures on fees. For the first time since fees were introduced by the Labour Government, no one at university, including the thousands of part-time students, will have to pay any fees whatsoever. As a result of the Labour system, thousands and thousands of part-time students from low-income backgrounds have to pay an upfront fee. We are getting rid of that. Secondly, we are changing when people will need to repay for the benefits of having gone to university. If we want to be fair, we should remember yet again that it is estimated that the earning power of those who have gone to university will increase on average by about £100,000. It is therefore not unreasonable to ask people to make some contribution to that, but we are different in saying that that repayment should be made only when they are earning much more money than under the old system: £21,000 rather than £15,000. In practice, that means that while, yes, how much universities can charge will go up, in most respects-this is what Opposition Members refuse to acknowledge-the repayments for graduates will go down, such that every single graduate in the future will pay out less from their bank account every month than they do under the Labour system. That is fair, it is sustainable, and it will work.

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Several hon. Members: rose -

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John Bercow (Speaker): Order. Understandably, there is considerable interest in this matter, so there is some pressure on time. I therefore ask for brief questions and pithy replies.

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Robert Halfon (Harlow, Conservative): Does my right hon. Friend agree that the way to increase social mobility and social justice for our young people is not to leave them on the scrapheap, as the last Government did, but to increase the number of apprenticeships by hundreds of thousands?

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• Nicholas Clegg : I strongly agree. I think it shows our commitment to providing people with access to the labour market that we are increasing by a quarter of a million the number of apprenticeships available to young people, compared with the previous Government's plans. I repeat again that this is at a time when we are spending-I think-£400 million every single day in borrowing costs, which is enough to build a primary school every 20 minutes. Therefore, those deficit deniers on the Opposition Benches have to ask themselves again: "How do you promote social mobility on a morass of debt?" You cannot.

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Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles, Labour): The right hon. Gentleman may be aware of the Speaker's parliamentary placement scheme, which is due to launch on 8 June and will provide paid parliamentary internships for people from working-class backgrounds. Does he agree that unpaid internships are exploitative and totally unacceptable in this day and age? Can he confirm that he has not and does not employ any unpaid interns himself?

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• Nicholas Clegg : I certainly welcome the efforts of the right hon. Lady and all those others who have been involved in the Speaker's excellent initiative; it is a small beginning but very significant. Of course I agree with her principle that internships should be not only advertised openly and transparently, so that there is a meritocracy in who applies for and secures internships, but properly remunerated. I can confirm that, as of today -[Interruption.] I think we would all accept that the way in which internships-in all parts of the House-have been administered and received in the past has left a lot to be desired. Speaking as the leader of the Liberal Democrats, I can confirm that, as of today, we are making sure that advertisements for internships are name and school blind, so that there is a completely level playing field, and that proper remuneration is provided to those who secure internships. I do not say this in a competitive way, but I hope that we can move towards having that kind of approach across the whole Westminster estate.

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Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire, Conservative): I welcome the strategy's strong emphasis on reducing family breakdown. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that strong families are an engine of social mobility for many children in our nation?

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• Nicholas Clegg : Although I may not entirely agree with some of the suggestions that have been put forward as to how that might be reflected in the tax system, I strongly agree, of course, that strong families produce strong and self-confident children. I want to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions for leading the debate, not only in Westminster, but across the country, on the link between family breakdown and repeat cycles of deprivation.

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Frank Field (Birkenhead, Labour): May I welcome the statement that the Deputy Prime Minister made today? Although there are some noble exceptions, the life chances of most children in this country are determined by the age of five. Given that, what importance does he attach to the foundation years as the key driver of this new strategy?

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• Nicholas Clegg : I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman and thank him for the work he has done in his independent report. It cast a fascinating light on precisely the problem and dilemma he identifies, which is that many of the patterns of injustice, social inequality and social immobility set in very early and that, as a society, we have for too long embarked on remedial actions much later in life. It is not too late by then-that is too pessimistic a view-but it is a whole lot of more difficult and certainly more expensive to remedy at that stage problems that have their source when a child is very young. I certainly agree with the right hon. Gentleman on the approach to foundation years. We need to equip all children with what he has called "school readiness", so that by the time children walk through the school gates they are in a better position to benefit from school. We want them to enjoy it and find it enriching, rather than end up as one of the small number who are distracted, bored and very disruptive at the back of the class. I should stress that that is bad for everybody in the class, so I strongly endorse his approach.

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Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood, Conservative): This follows on from what Hazel Blears said. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that all parties in this place, most major professions, the media and most top businesses have been living in a glass house when it comes to the barriers to social mobility that informal internships have set and that at least the coalition Government are beginning to show a lead on this particular issue?

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• Nicholas Clegg : I strongly agree with my hon. Friend's agreement with the previous question-if that is not too circular a way of putting it. I am delighted that today a number of large businesses from several fields-the media, accountancy and law-have said that they will play their part, not only by making sure they administer their own internship programmes more transparently, but by going out to schools. I was with a number of leaders from those professions in a school in Southwark this morning, talking to 15-year-olds in small groups about how they could aspire to become lawyers, accountants and politicians. That simple act of getting into schools and showing what is possible can have a galvanising effect on the aspirations of young people.

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Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield, Labour): May I tell the Deputy Prime Minister that many Opposition Members will view the strategy with interest? There are some things that we rather like about it, although we have some reservations. May I also tell him, however, that warm words will not work here? Specific professions have to be taken on in the hardest way, particularly lawyers. It is almost impossible for a young person from an ordinary background to get into law-to get a pupilage or anything like that-and it is almost impossible to get on to a Bar vocational course unless one has been privately educated.

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• Nicholas Clegg : I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words, although that will not do him any good on the Opposition Benches-he needs to be careful. I strongly agree with him that words and strategies are no good unless they are translated into action. Let me say two things. First, we have to be realistic. This is a deep-seated issue with quite profound social, economic and cultural antecedence, so we are not going to change things overnight. The challenge is going to far outlive this Parliament and, I suspect, the political career of everyone in the Chamber right now.

What we are trying to do in the announcement today is establish a mechanism of scrutiny and accountability in relation not only to what this Government do but to what all future Governments of whatever political complexion do, so that it is built to last. That is why I am very grateful for the work that the former Secretary of State for Health, Alan Milburn, did for the previous Government on internships and professions, and is doing in his current role as the interim chair for the new social mobility and child poverty commission. He is utterly independent and will produce an annual report on our progress against the indicators we have set out in the strategy, not to the Government but to everyone here in Parliament, so there will be totally independent, annual and regular scrutiny of how well or, indeed, how badly we are doing.

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Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye, Conservative): Parents and teachers in Hastings warmly welcome the pupil premium that will follow children with free school meals, of whom we have a high level. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is not just the money but the reforms proposed by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions that will make the real difference in making social mobility a part of our lives?

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• Nicholas Clegg : One fact speaks for itself and confirms exactly what my hon. Friend says: the Work programme will take 900,000 people out of poverty altogether by providing the simple incentive that work always pays. It is a dramatic rebalancing of the benefit system and incentives to work, which will have a socially progressive effect.

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Mark Durkan (Foyle, Social Democratic and Labour Party): Notwithstanding what the Deputy Prime Minister has said, does he recognise that many of the measures introduced by the Government, in relation to child trust funds, child benefit changes, tax changes, tuition fees and the education maintenance allowance, will have a cumulative squeezing effect on many hard-working families? Is he not worried that the compound impact of those measures will damage the emancipation of aspiration and social mobility?

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• Nicholas Clegg : I would test Mr Speaker's patience if I went through each of the items that the hon. Gentleman mentions. I really believe that hon. Members should look in more detail at how the new higher education funding system will work and what it will mean for individual graduates in terms of money out of their bank account every month. They should look at how we are targeting the replacement for EMA in a way that really helps vulnerable children who would otherwise be impeded from going on into education, and at the effect of the new income tax allowance, which comes in tomorrow and will take 880,000 people, in one simple step, out of paying any income tax altogether. Hon. Members should look at the decisions in last year's Budget that reduced child poverty by about 50,000, and at the triple-lock guarantee for pensioners that their state pension will increase by either 2.5%, inflation or earnings. I could go on.

With those measures we seek, in difficult circumstances, to ensure that the most vulnerable are not affected. I repeat again that there is not a world of difference between the £14 billion-worth of cuts that is the Labour party's position and the £16 billion-worth of cuts next month. We have to bring down the deficit otherwise we will saddle future generations with a dead-weight of debt around their necks, which will not allow them to move ahead at all.

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Duncan Hames (Chippenham, Liberal Democrat): Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the charitable status of private schools adequately supports the objective of social mobility?

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• Nicholas Clegg : The key in education is always to make sure that the vast majority of schools-state-funded schools-have the resources, freedom and ability to provide the best possible education to their children and to make sure that children from those schools have the opportunity to go to our top universities. That should remain the focus of our attention.

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Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East, Labour): Several of us in opposition have been pushing the Government for some time for details about when they were publishing their child poverty strategy, but it was sneaked out under cover of a written statement today. Is it not shameful that the only way we can get any mention of child poverty in the Chamber is by the Opposition's asking an urgent question on social mobility? Should we not have a proper debate on the strategy?

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• Nicholas Clegg : I think that is unfair. We published a written statement with the document at 9.30 am and I have just referred to child poverty figures and the effect of the Budget on them. Just to be clear, we have said that the child poverty strategy and the social mobility strategy are perfectly aligned. Why? It is because in our view simply taking a statistical snapshot view of child poverty, as happened in the past with the 60% of median income cut-off, does not capture why social mobility has not improved over generations. That is why we have tried to introduce a more well-rounded and fuller picture in what we have published today.

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Damian Hinds (East Hampshire, Conservative): I very much welcome the Deputy Prime Minister's focus on leading indicators, which build and draw on the work of Mr Field. Of course, that makes it very important that we get the right indicators and make sure there is a sufficiently broad and balanced base. In the early years, which are so crucial, we know that some of the drivers are a healthy pregnancy, early attachment and spending time with baby, talking and reading to her. How will the leading-indicators approach fully reflect those key factors?

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• Nicholas Clegg : As the hon. Gentleman will see from the publication, some of the indicators seek to capture precisely some of the earliest indications of disadvantage, such as birth weight-there is a strong correlation between disadvantage and lower birth weight-but there are other things that we must do to make it more possible for mothers and fathers to provide the best possible start in life to all children. That is why we are determined, although it will take time, to introduce over time more generous and more flexible parental leave arrangements so that mothers and fathers can provide that vital care, nurturing and love that young children, wherever they are born, deserve.

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David Lammy (Tottenham, Labour): The chief executive of Tesco earns 500 times what his colleagues who stack shelves earn, but his company gets a corporation tax reduction and it is now the case that even Leeds Metropolitan university wants to charge £8,500 in tuition fees. How will that promote social mobility?

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• Nicholas Clegg : The right hon. Gentleman should not jump the gun. Of the universities that have already declared how much they might want to charge, fewer than half have gravitated to the highest level. Of course, we cannot tell what that will mean for students and graduates until we know what it means per course and per individual. There are lots of waivers, fee reductions, bursaries and so on to consider. I stress again that the Office for Fair Access-this goes back to a question posed by Ms Harman which I failed to answer earlier-is there not to micro-manage price but to insist that if any university is going to charge more than £6,000 it can do so only if it shows a significant change in the way it will be reaching out to, accommodating and accepting children from more disadvantaged backgrounds, who are still woefully under-represented at our universities.

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Tony Baldry (Second Church Estates Commissioner; Banbury, Conservative): This is a welcome but huge cross-cutting agenda, which can be judged only on results. Will my right hon. Friend give an undertaking that when the first annual report is published it will be accompanied by a ministerial statement, so that we can all have the opportunity to take stock of what progress has been made during the first year of this policy?

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• Nicholas Clegg : I strongly endorse that suggestion and I would be very keen to take it up.

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Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central, Labour): The Deputy Prime Minister quite rightly paid tribute to early years provision to support families. Can he tell me, on that basis, whether the Government are prepared to rethink funding for early years, particularly given the great success of the Sure Start scheme?

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• Nicholas Clegg : As I hope that the hon. Gentleman knows, we have made more than enough money available to secure the continuation of Sure Start centres everywhere. What is happening-I say this before he shakes his head-is that there seems to be a discrepancy in the pattern of how different councils are responding. For instance, I know that in the councils controlled by Liberal Democrats, not a single Sure Start centre has been closed. The money in the early intervention grant, I am sure I am right in thinking, is more than sufficient to keep Sure Start centres going, and we want to continue fully to support them.

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Peter Bone (Wellingborough, Conservative): I do not doubt for one moment that Labour Members want to increase social mobility-they just do not know how to do it. Throwing money at it was clearly wrong. In the Deputy Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, we have two people who passionately believe in improving social mobility. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that it is not just money that solves this problem?

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• Nicholas Clegg : I agree absolutely. If money were the answer, we would be in the most socially mobile society on the planet. We more than doubled, in cash terms, the amount of money spent by Government between 1997 and 2010-from over £300 billion to well over £600 billion-yet social mobility did not advance at all. More profound factors such as education, health, housing, how the tax system works and how it interacts with the benefits system need to be looked at in the round. I hope that, bit by bit, we will, collectively, on both sides of the House, make progress on this.

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Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland, Labour): Cuts in public sector jobs will disproportionately affect women. Is that because the Deputy Prime Minister agrees with the Minister for Universities and Science that the biggest barrier to social mobility in the last 30 years has been the advancement of women?

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• Nicholas Clegg : The welfare reforms, including universal credit, will massively benefit women who want to take up a little bit of work, a few hours a week. [Interruption.] I find it patronising and demeaning to say to people who want to work a few hours a week that that is not a proper job. That is extraordinary.

On public sector jobs, let me repeat something that the hon. Lady is clearly not aware of. Her own party is committed to unveiling, in 24 hours, £14 billion of cuts to fulfil its deficit reduction programme. At the same time, her party is committed to £12 billion of extra spending. She cannot wave her finger at this Government until she tells us how she is going to reduce the deficit burden on future generations because, without that element, social mobility is impossible.

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John Spellar (Warley, Labour): Can the Deputy Prime Minister confirm the story in today's Evening Standard that he secured his first internship through his father's influence in a Finnish bank?

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• Nicholas Clegg : Yes, I can. As a teenager, yes, I did receive an internship, as, I suspect, did many people around the Chamber. [Interruption.] Good for you if you did not. All of us should be honest and acknowledge that the way that internships have been administered in the private sector, the public sector, political parties, and-I discovered when we came into government-in Whitehall as well, under 13 years of Labour, left a lot to be desired. I was a recipient of that, as, I suspect, many others here were as well. That is what we need to change if we want to secure greater social mobility in the future.

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Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston, Labour): The Commission on Social Mobility, established by the Deputy Prime Minister, observed that countries with the highest levels of social mobility also have the lowest levels of inequality. That is not the same as relative income poverty. I could not see a measure of inequality in the new suite of indicators. Can the Deputy Prime Minister tell us what his Government will do to reduce inequality, and particularly the way in which it is caused by excessive incomes at the top?

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• Nicholas Clegg : As the hon. Lady will no doubt know, as she is an expert in this field, the relationship between inequality and social mobility is a slightly fraught area of academic study. For instance, Australia has fairly similar, if not slightly higher, levels of inequality compared with us, but it has significantly higher levels of social mobility. The other problem, as she knows, is that measuring social mobility, particularly intergenerational mobility which is the focus of our attention, takes a long time. We have now set aside money to introduce a new cohort study, so that we do not continue to rely on information that is, in some cases, decades out of date.

I believe that the tax changes that we have introduced, taking a lot of people on low income out of paying tax, the closing of some of the loopholes at the top, the increasing of capital gains tax by 10%- [Interruption.] The hon. Lady frowns, but let us remember that, under the Labour Government, there was this grotesque loophole such that cleaners were paying more tax on their wages than very wealthy financiers were on their dividends, and that is something that we have changed. We have imposed a £2.5 billion tax on the banks every single year, far surpassing the single pinprick of the bank bonus tax that she advocates. The action that we have taken in the past few months shows that we want to move in the direction that she advocates.

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Grahame Morris (Easington, Labour): The proportion of unpaid internships in the City of London will do nothing to improve social mobility in Easington. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree with the principal of East Durham college, who said, in relation to the education maintenance allowance,

"I believe the Department of Education made the wrong decision, and the disadvantaged young people in the North-East will suffer as a result. Many of our learners are genuinely worried about paying for transport to college next year"?

Are not the actions of this Government at odds with their rhetoric on social mobility?

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• Nicholas Clegg : If we had got rid of EMA and not replaced it with anything, that allegation would have some force. As I explained earlier, our replacement fund of £180 billion actually increases the amount of money-the equivalent of £38 a week for the most vulnerable youngsters in the education system- and provides significant funds- [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position that I am lying, so let me write to him to clarify exactly how the £180- [Interruption.] I find it quite extraordinary that, without listening to the question, he should bandy about such outrageous allegations. He has studied our proposals for several weeks, and what we are doing in response to input from directors and principals of colleges. They tell us that in order to address some of those transport costs, lunch costs and the cost of classroom materials they would like as much discretion as possible so that they can provide the money to the children whom they know really need the help.

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John Bercow (Speaker) : Order. I trust that no right hon. or hon. Member will be accused of lying. I must say I heard no such allegation. I would just emphasise that, on the whole, sedentary chuntering is to be deprecated.

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Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East, Labour): Does the Deputy Prime Minister accept that dealing with social mobility needs a long-term plan? I, and many of my generation, were the beneficiaries of a great deal of help with social mobility as a result of the post-world war welfare state, created when the national debt was extremely high. Changes in social mobility in the last decade are far more likely to be influenced by the policies of the previous 20 years, when the Deputy Prime Minister's coalition partners were in power. Does he therefore agree that it is far too early to be reach a judgment on the previous Labour Government?

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• Nicholas Clegg : Of course, to a certain extent, the hon. Lady is right to say, as I conceded earlier, that it is difficult to paint a detailed picture of something that is slow moving and for which we need more evidence. However, there is a lot of evidence to show that there is no correlation between a significant increase in social mobility and a significant increase in public spending. In cash terms, public spending more than doubled over the past decade, but there is precious little evidence that social mobility increased likewise.

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John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead, Labour): Some 600,000 students will lose out through the abolition of the EMA, even allowing for the introduction of the Deputy Prime Minister's scheme. Hundreds will be in my constituency. Does he imagine in his wildest dream-I imagine that his dreams are pretty wild-that any of those students will see that as a contribution to social mobility?

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• Nicholas Clegg : As the hon. Gentleman knows, and as was conceded by Secretaries of State in the previous Government, the EMA in its original design was always going to become a more targeted scheme as the compulsory education age increased to 17 and then to 18. That was made very clear when the EMA was first announced. A number of independent studies have been carried out. They vary a bit, but most of them seem to congregate around the conclusion that the proportion of those who really need support to stay in full-time education is no more than about 10%. What we have done with the £180 billion-

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John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead, Labour): indicated dissent.

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• Nicholas Clegg : The hon. Gentleman may shake his head, but this is an example of evidence-based policy. I know that he does not like it. He probably would not acknowledge it if it hit him in the head, but it is something that we are trying to do as a Government. We have provided sufficient money to boost, not to reduce, support for the most vulnerable youngsters and a significant discretionary fund to meet transport costs, lunch costs and classroom material costs.

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Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree, Labour): Today's press release on civil service internships has no detail. How many places will there be on the fast-stream diversity scheme, and how much will interns be paid? Most importantly, how does the right hon. Gentleman expect the scheme to be delivered in three months' time when the Cabinet Office has only today asked external organisations to bid to run it?

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• Nicholas Clegg : I do not have detailed statistical answers to some of those questions, but I shall write to the hon. Lady as soon as I can.

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[11647

Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North, Labour): Will the Deputy Prime Minister explain how Liberal Democrat-controlled Hull city council's decision effectively to mothball 13 of the city's children's centres and scrap the council's early years team will help social mobility in my constituency?

906)

• Nicholas Clegg : There is great diversity and variety between what different councils are doing. I know that in the city I represent not a single swimming pool, library or Sure Start centre has been closed, and there have been no more than 270 compulsory redundancies. People in Sheffield look across the Pennines to Labour-controlled Manchester and see a slash-and-burn approach, whereby 2,000 people have been summarily dismissed and one public service after the next has been closed. I think that that comparison speaks for itself.

906)

[10040

John Bercow (Speaker): I thank the Deputy Prime Minister and colleagues for their co-operation.

• Full Debate in Parliament