Ambitious for the new generation

This article is from Our Labour, Our Communities – a pamphlet of 10 essays by Labour PPCs, published by LabourList in partnership with Lisa Nandy MP

‘Britain is on the brink of becoming a permanently divided nation’. The words of Alan Milburn, the chair of the Government’s Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission are a fitting epitaph for the legacy David Cameron’s government. Nothing better demonstrates the iniquity of the Coalition’s policies than the fact that absolute child poverty will be higher when the government limps to its end than it was when David Cameron and Nick Clegg stood in the Downing Street rose garden and promised to ‘take Britain in a historic new direction’.

Intergenerational inequality has broken the historic social contract, which says that opportunities for the next generation will be better than the last. There is nothing inevitable about the wealth of our nation and our place in the world – it’s the Labour Party’s job to instill hope, ambition and opportunity into future generations who will shape the next century.

The best start in life

Unlocking the talents of the next generation requires us to break the seemingly intractable link between our circumstances at birth and our life chances thereafter. An incoming Labour government will need to take up the challenge presented by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission. We will have to reset the targets to eradicate child poverty and challenge every arm of government to align their policies towards that goal, while mobilising business and civil society so they play a part in this plan.

We know that the best route out of poverty for families with children is for both parents to be in work, but we also know that the biggest influence on childhood development is parenting.We need to give parents time, support and protected income to make sure that they can provide for their children – not just financially, but also emotionally.. Labour’s offer of 25 hours of free childcare for three and four year olds, as well as measures to increase pay through a higher minimum wage and incentives for employers to pay a living wage will help. But any reforms to the welfare system need to strengthen, rather than undermine, support for parents and carers on low-incomes. The Office for Budget Responsibility should assess the impact of all government policies on poverty reduction.

Targeted early interventions, working through local authorities rather than top-down central government initiatives, should aim to make sure that every child is school-ready by the age of 5. At present, two thirds of children from low-income families arrive at school ill prepared, and many never catch up during their time in formal education.

Following the roll out of free school meals for 5, 6 and 7 year olds, the next Labour government should look with urgency at school breakfast provision. It’s estimated that over 700,000 children are turning up to school too hungry to learn, with one in three skipping breakfast. This has serious consequences on their learning and health. Free school breakfast clubs were extremely successful in Wales and Blackpool; they should be made available in every school across the country.

Meeting the dreams and aspirations of all

The next Labour government will need a relentless focus on tackling child poverty. But we’ll also needs to tell a bigger story about how we’ll meet the dreams and aspirations of children from all backgrounds in a rapidly changing world.

Globalisation presents challenges, yet it also provides the next generation with a world of opportunity that the baby boomers could have scarcely imagined. Social justice is an economic necessity as much it is a moral imperative.

We must make sure that children from all backgrounds have access to high quality teaching in the sciences and creative arts. So computer science should be made a fourth ‘core science’. This is critical to ensuring that children are given the chance to develop their talent in areas that will enable them to thrive in the 21st century.

Moreover, following the success of the London Challenge initiative on improving attainment for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, the next Labour government should launch a ‘Digital Challenge’ that encourages partnerships between schools, industry and the third sector. This would improve the digital skills base of pupils and teachers and nurture creativity in the curriculum.

World-class teaching and personal development

The last Labour government made huge strides in restoring the status of teaching and attracting new recruits into the profession through a range of pathways, including Teach First. Under Michael Gove, constant centralisation and demoralising diktats from Whitehall, combined with an unbearable workload, sees people leaving the profession in droves.

Labour’s commitment to continuing professional development for teachers is welcome. But we must go further, by giving schools with high levels of deprivation the funding and freedom to recruit the very best teachers to work with pupils falling behind. Our goal should be to end illiteracy and innumeracy for primary school leavers within the next decade.

We also need to invest in high quality, professional careers advice, extra-curricular activities and enrichment opportunities to develop rounded characters with a good understanding of the options available to them in the wider world.

Greater equality for a good society

A relentless focus on tackling poverty and reducing educational inequality should be Labour’s defining mission. Education doesn’t rank as highly in the polls as other issues, but it’s the closest thing to a silver bullet that politicians have available to create a better society for everyone.

At a time when people lack faith in politics to provide the big answers to the 21st century, a vision for the future of our children – tied to the future of our country – might just do it.

Wes Streeting is Parliamentary Candidate for Ilford North. You can read this and the other essays in this series in our pamphlet Our Labour, Our Communities.