Asked by
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made with
improving the delivery of financial education to 11 to 16
year-olds since it became a statutory part of the citizenship
national curriculum.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Education () (Con)
My Lords, financial education is covered in citizenship and
mathematics curricula. Our school snapshot survey in 2021 showed
that 86% of secondary schools teach pupils how to make good
decisions about money, including on spending and saving. We have
been working together with the Money and Pensions Service and Her
Majesty’s Treasury, and will be launching webinars in the autumn
to support the effective teaching of financial education.
(Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for her response.
A report last month by the Centre for Social Justice found that
only 8% of students cite schools as their main source of
financial education, while a Bank of England commission survey
back in March found that almost two-thirds of teachers cited a
lack of dedicated time in the timetable for delivery. Does the
Minister agree that more needs to be done to address these
worrying statistics to help our children learn how to manage
their money and give them the best start in life?
(Con)
My noble friend is right in that we can do more to embed
financial education in the curriculum. The webinars that I
referred to will build on the financial education guidance for
schools published by the Money and Pensions Service last year. It
highlights the links between financial education and the
curriculum, and how primary and secondary schools can improve the
financial education that they deliver.
(Lab)
The Money and Pensions Service, to which the Minister just
referred, states that money habits are formed from the age of
seven, well before young people arrive at secondary school, yet
only about 25% of primary schoolchildren in England receive any
form of financial education. Last year, a report from the
All-Party Parliamentary Group on Financial Education for Young
People called on the Department for Education to introduce
financial education to the national curriculum in primary
schools, and to set a target of ensuring that every primary
school pupil has access to it by 2030. What progress has the
Minister’s department made towards that target?
(Con)
The noble Lord will be aware that the Government made a
commitment to make no changes to the national curriculum during
the life of this Parliament, and that remains the case. Although
citizenship is not compulsory in primary schools, as we know,
many schools choose to teach it as part of their commitment to
delivering a broad and balanced curriculum. The Money and
Pensions Service has clear goals to ensure that 2 million more
children and young people get meaningful financial education by
2030 and we are very supportive of its work in that.
(LD)
How is the financial education of young people helped by
prohibiting grand- parents taking out junior ISAs for their
grandchildren?
(Con)
I was not aware of the point the noble Lord raises. More broadly,
when you talk to young people, they say that a lot of their
financial education comes from their parents and family,
including their grandparents, so I agree with the sentiment that
grandparents have an important role to play.
(Con)
My Lords, the fraud Select Committee has heard that far too many
scams succeed because of ignorance on the part of the recipient.
The Centre for Social Justice report, to which we have already
heard reference, has found that two-thirds of primary school
children receive no financial education and, notwithstanding what
we have heard from my noble friend, that too many school leavers
have no adequate financial education. What is going to be done
going forward?
(Con)
The Government share my noble friend’s concern. To be clear, in
the primary citizenship curriculum pupils learn about where money
comes from, how it can be used for different purposes and how to
save for the future. In secondary school pupils learn about the
importance and practice of budgeting, income and expenditure,
insurance, savings, pensions and financial products. I think
these are many of the things to which my noble friend
referred.
(Lab Co-op)
My Lords, could the Minister sign up the Tory leadership
candidates for one of these courses?
(Con)
I think the House will appreciate that that is way above my pay
grade.
(Con)
My Lords, when the Financial Services Authority—the precursor to
the Financial Conduct Authority—was established, one of its key
objectives was to provide education to children in this country.
Would my noble friend agree that it is more than just for
government policy to provide widespread financial education to
children?
(Con)
If I have understood my noble friend’s question correctly, there
is a broader responsibility. When one looks at the advice given
by the Money and Pensions Service, it talks very much about how
schools should work with parents and carers and how to embed
learning about financial issues by putting learning into practice
and building on everyday events—perhaps including the current
leadership campaign —to understand how money works.
(LD)
My Lords, what is being done to assist care leavers, who often
cannot manage their financial affairs, have missed out on the
education that might have been available in schools, find
themselves in desperate trouble trying to pay bills and manage
and often end up homeless? Is it not time for a more
comprehensive policy towards young care leavers?
(Con)
The Government have introduced a number of very specific measures
to support care leavers in exactly the areas the noble Baroness
refers to. If I may, I will set those out in detail in a
letter.
(Lab)
I want to return to the point made by the noble Lord, , about children, even in
primary schools, being subjected to scams and fraud, including
money laundering. The list that the Minister read out made no
reference to that. I think there is a gap and I ask the Minister
to take this away and think about the risks and the value of
advising young people of these risks.
(Con)
On the specific issue of money laundering, it might be helpful if
the noble Lord could give me an example of what he is thinking
about. Some of the risks that we know young people face—and which
I know your Lordships’ House is very concerned about—relate to
gaming and gambling. I hope your Lordships will be pleased to
know that a new subject in the health education curriculum on the
risks associated with gambling and the accumulation of debt will
be compulsory in all state-funded schools, primary and
secondary.
(Con)
My Lords, I refer to my entry in the register on my work for
Common Sense Media. I congratulate my noble friend on her
excellent work at the Department for Education; for a brief
period last week, she was entirely in charge of it, I think, and
that was a glorious moment. One thing that our children need to
be aware of is the terrible proliferation of financial scams on
the internet. Has my noble friend had discussions with the
Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to join up
financial education with general digital citizen education to
give our children the tools that they need to navigate the
internet?
(Con)
My noble friend makes a good point. My colleague the Minister for
Schools Standards has been working with DCMS on exactly that.
of Darlington (Lab)
My Lords, young people themselves say that they want more
financial education: 81% say that they worry about money, 67% say
that they have become more anxious about money as a result of
Covid and 72% say that they want to learn more about money at
school. What more can the Government do? At the moment, it seems
that a commitment not to change the national curriculum is
actually denying young people the education that they say they
want.
(Con)
Making sure that we deliver the mathematics and citizenship
curricula in a way that equips children and young people with the
skills they need is a clear priority, particularly given the
challenges that our schools and young people have faced over the
last two years of Covid.
(Con)
My Lords, is it not important that young people are proud of
their country and citizenship? I raise again with my noble friend
a point I have made many times: would it not be a good idea,
particularly bearing in mind recent events, if young people were
able to graduate as citizens, as it were, and go through the sort
of ceremony that newly naturalised British subjects go through?
Would my noble friend please take that on board?
(Con)
I commend my noble friend for his continued focus on this issue.
The Government have supported many young people to take part in
the National Citizen Service, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and
other schemes, all of which really recognise their achievements.
The Government are also introducing the national climate leaders
award so that young people can be recognised for their
contributions to sustainability and the future of the planet.
