We need to reverse intergenerational inequalities
Patrick Hurley is the Labour MP for Southport
Reversing the intergenerational inequalities built up over the past couple of decades wasn’t – in so many words – a key talking point in the General Election campaign last year, and it hasn’t been front and centre of the campaign around the coming Locals this year either. But it is nevertheless of huge importance and consequence to the future of the country’s growth prospects.
If you are – or have relatives who are – under 30, you’ll be well aware of the difficulties that generation is having across the country in finding well-paid, secure jobs and getting on the housing ladder. For far too many people, decent jobs aren’t available anywhere but the big cities, and decent affordable housing isn’t available anywhere in the big cities. It’s a problem felt acutely by those at the start of their careers, and it’s a problem almost twenty years in the making. We’re all well aware of the dynamic of the university-educated only being able to find jobs in low-skilled, badly-paid roles. Wage compression at the bottom of the pay scale isn’t helping them either – why seek promotion and advancement when skewed wage distribution means minimum wage jobs pay only slightly less than management roles?
They are facing a perfect storm of problems – a national economy that has de-industrialised to an alarming extent in recent decades, a retail sector that is in decline, white collar office jobs that are at risk of being replaced by automation, and a government whose mission-led growth agenda hasn’t yet borne fruit and is unlikely to do so for some time. This is then added to them coping with the legacy of decisions from national Tory-led governments from when they were children – the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future programme, the ending of the Child Trust Fund, the tripling of university tuition fees, the underfunding of Sure Start centres, the ending of Educational Maintenance Grants – that all had the effect of redistributing much-needed funds away from their generation to their parents and grandparents instead.
Ministers from that time now agree that at least some of these decisions were misplaced and self-defeating. Michael Gove has expressed regret over the cancelling of the Building Schools for the Future scheme. David Willetts now proposes a £10,000 “citizens’ inheritance” to be payable to young people to address intergenerational inequality. And Ed Davey has acknowledged that the Lib Dem-backed tripling of tuition fees in 2010-2011 is something he is not proud of any more.
I’m keen to see the neglect of our young people that we saw in the 2010-2024 era end, and I’m confident the government will move further and faster on this in the years to come. The government’s rolling out of new breakfast clubs in schools is a welcome start, and proposals to grow our industrial base in clean, green energy are to be applauded. But more needs to be done to allow the next generation the chance of having the best start in life.
There are promising signs in pockets of the country. In my own Liverpool City Region, FE colleges and others – including the innovative Biograd Group leading the way in STEM education – are offering opportunities for young adults to develop their skills and careers in a way that helps them to fulfil their potential.
But more generally, funding for training in vocational and trade skills needs to be increased across the board, with the apprenticeship levy being directed overwhelmingly for use in those sectors that would benefit those who need it the most, whether that’s laying bricks, clinical science or training in law. The government’s commitment to building 1.5m homes is a great ambition, but the country doesn’t yet have the capacity to deliver in terms of workplace skills, planning reform or infrastructure. We’re going to need to go further, faster to ensure our young people get the best start in life.
Back in January of this year, my colleague Andrew Lewin MP started work with the Social Market Foundation on a Citizen’s Advance, payable to those under the age of 40 with at least 10 years National Insurance contributions in exchange for a slightly later retirement pension. It’s a great proposal, aimed at addressing the worst of the inequalities young people are subjected to, whilst embedding a social contract between both individual and state. Too many young people rely on the Bank of Mum and Dad to get a start in life, and whilst such familial generosity is to be applauded on an individual level, the aggregate outcome is to see wealth cascade down the generations in a minority of families, leaving the majority making do with crumbs from the table.
The government’s intentions around economic growth and ensuring prosperity across sectors, regions and class is laudable. Those intentions will be best served by being built on the foundations of addressing intergenerational inequality, putting more money into the pockets of working people and explicitly the next generation of working people. It’s not going to be an easy task turning the country’s prospects round, but investing in our young people gives us the best chance of doing it.
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