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The top 20 constituencies with the best social mobility in England are all in London, according to research from a leading education charity that underscores the stark regional divide in children’s life chances.
In a report published on Thursday, the Sutton Trust has put together an “opportunity index” by analysing six measures of mobility. These include the share of children on free school meals who achieve passes in GCSE maths and English; who complete a degree by age 22; and who make it into the top 20% of earners by age 28.
The trust finds that all of the top-scoring 20 constituencies on this index, and 42 of the top 50, are in London. The highest-ranked constituency outside the capital is Birmingham Perry Bar, in the West Midlands, in 23rd.
The research shows the dramatic differences in children’s prospects, depending on where in England they happen to be born.
Children receiving free school meals in the best-performing constituency, the social security minister Stephen Timms’s seat of East Ham, are a startling 30 percentage points more likely to achieve grade 5 in English and maths than their counterparts in the area at the bottom of the list, Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West, represented by Labour’s Chi Onwura.
As they go on through life, these same children are three times as likely to complete a degree if they came from Timms’s east London seat than they are if they were born in Onwura’s Newcastle seat. The latter is one of three of the 10 lowest-scoring constituencies in north-east England.
Nick Harrison, the Sutton Trust’s chief executive, said: “This research paints a startling picture of inequality of opportunity across England. The life chances of disadvantaged young people remain strongly tied to where they grow up.”
The report, which is based on data covering 10 million people over 25 years, also reveals big differences in the likelihood that children from low-income families leave the area they grew up in when they become adults.
Despite the familiar narrative of young people moving to London to seek their fortune, the Sutton Trust finds that the capital is one of two regions, with the east of England, where the highest proportion of children on free school meals go on to move elsewhere, at 13%. That is more than twice the 6% in north-east England who do so.
Anthony Breach, a research director at the Centre for Cities thinktank, said the Sutton Trust’s research suggested that aside from London, many English cities are not offering the economic opportunities they could.
“It’s striking that only London among our major cities consistently performs the role we’d expect of a big city – driving progression, opportunity and advancement for its residents. This aligns with the evidence that Britain’s other big cities are underperforming,” he said.
The Sutton Trust makes a series of policy recommendations for narrowing these regional gaps in social mobility, including incentivising the best teachers to work in disadvantaged schools, and improving financial help for children from low-income families who attend university.
As negotiations between the Treasury and Whitehall departments intensify, the trust also calls on the government to make improving social mobility a guiding principle in the forthcoming spending review.
“Opportunities for social mobility will only be available nationwide if there is a more even spread of economic opportunities across the country,” the report says.
“This should be a sustained effort across government, potentially including greater devolution of powers and reforms to funding for local government, as well as greater investment in infrastructure regionally – including transport, and opportunities for education and training.”
Priya Edwards, a senior policy and advocacy adviser at Save the Children UK, agreed that ministers should be prepared to commit significant resources to improving children’s prospects.
“This report shows how children’s life chances are sadly limited by both poverty and geography and it should serve as a wake-up call to the UK government,” she said.
“Ministers must act to level the playing field for all children, regardless of where they live. They should start by scrapping the two-child limit and benefit cap at the comprehensive spending review on 11 June, or in the forthcoming child poverty strategy.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “High and rising standards are at the heart of the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and ensure where you come from does not determine your future success.
“This government has inherited a system with baked-in inequalities, which we’re tackling head-on through our plan for change by rolling out free breakfast clubs, improving mental health support, investing over £3bn to support those children who need it most and delivering a rich and broad curriculum so pupils are set up for life, work and the future.”
