Sir Peter Lampl responds to the Social Mobility Commission’s ‘Time for change’ report

“Britain’s social mobility is, together with the United States, the lowest in the developed world.  We at the Sutton Trust have played our part in highlighting this by putting social mobility on the map.  Also together with the Education Endowment Foundation we have helped hundreds of thousands of young people.

“Improving this low social mobility has been a priority for successive governments.  Alan Milburn is right to say that this has delivered ‘too little’ progress. In some cases – the attainment gap at primary school, for example – real improvements have been made.  However this has not been sustained in secondary schools.  There has been a failure to level the playing field and improve opportunities for young people from disadvantaged families.

“What we need is real political action that supports disadvantaged young people at every stage of their life, from before school starts, through to university and beyond.”

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. The Sutton Trust is a foundation set up in 1997, dedicated to improving social mobility through education. It has published over 180 research studies and funded and evaluated programmes that have helped hundreds of thousands of young people of all ages, from early years through to access to the professions.
2. TheMobility Manifesto, published by the Sutton Trust in May 2017, sets out 10 practical policy steps to improve social mobility.
3. A full copy of the report will be available to download at https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/social-mobility-commission