Young Fabian Consultation on ‘The Milburn Review of Social Mobility’

Young Fabian Consultation on ‘The Milburn Review of Social Mobility’

Young Fabian members are being offered a unique opportunity to submit their thoughts to the newly established ‘Milburn Review’ on social mobility and fair access to the professions.

Rt Hon Alan Milburn MP has been asked by the Prime Minister to examine what barriers prevent people from success in the professions, and what steps the Labour Government can take to increase social mobility for people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Alan Milburn has asked the Young Fabians to contribute to his inquiry, particularly to highlight young people’s experiences of entering traditional professions.

The Young Fabian submission to the Milburn Review will focus on key themes:

• Barriers to entry and progression in traditional professions for young people;
• The role of work experience as an entry route into professions – and in particular unpaid internships;
• Young people’s suggestions on how to improve social mobility through traditional professions.

If you want to contribute to the Young Fabian submission to the Milburn Review, then please read the questions set out below then submit your thoughts and responses to Young Fabian Vice-Chair David Chaplin on dchaplin@youngfabians.org.uk before March 10th. Those who do respond will also be invited to attend a roundtable event with Alan Milburn to discuss the Young Fabian submission later in the year.

Questions:

1. Barriers

• Have you experienced barriers in entering your professions? Was it in relation to your background or school type?
• What financial obstacles or financial support did you encounter?
• How did you overcome the barriers you faced when entering your profession?

2. Work experience

• What are the typical routes into your profession? (e.g. are there specific courses or degrees necessary for entry)
• Did you use formal or informal networks to help facilitate experience of, or entrance into your profession?
• Did you receive funding for work experience and internship opportunities

3. Young Fabian Suggestions

• What actions would you suggest to the Milburn Review to extend fair access to the professions?
• What schemes are you aware of from business, the third or public sector which helped broaden access to your profession? (Such as work shadowing or summer schools).
• Who so you think should be responsible for organising, funding and delivering these schemes? (Government?)

Valentine’s Day in Brussels

I spent last weekend in Brussels as the UK representative on the Expert Group on the economic crisis for ECOSY, the young European Socialists.

Beforehand I was intrigued about my fellow group members and how they would view the UK and the Labour Party, (despite it being Valentine’s Day, I didn’t expect it to be all love and roses). We’ve come a long way from the late nineties when the centre-left was in Government in most of Western Europe. Now I believe only the UK, Spain and Portugal have centre-left Governments, with Germany and Netherlands in coalition. But far from blaming Britain for the economic crisis due to our large and underegulated financial markets, my comrades from around Europe were looking to Labour for the solutions. They credited Gordon Brown with being the first to act and thought that through decisive action to protect British banks he had shown an alternative to the US approach which saw Lehman Brothers collapse. Most other countries have followed, and in some of our larger European neighbours such as France and Germany, second bailouts like the one we had in January are expected.

I found that very similar debates are taking place across Europe on issues such as bonuses, transparency and regulation. Some countries, such as Germany and Greece, had placed greater conditions on banks who had received Government funds than we have in the UK. The Group all agreed that bonuses should be based on long-term success and that we needed stricter regulation and greater consumer protection.

Our discussions convinced me of the need for effective co-ordination at the EU level, and beyond. In a globalised world, the level of regulation in other countries can have direct impact on British people and may require taxpayers’ money to bail out banks or protect consumers. A prime example was the uproar when individuals, companies and even charities realised that their deposits in Icelandic banks would not be protected should they fail. In the new financial system that emerges in 2009 and beyond, we need to be confident that our economy will not be destabilised by actions taken by banks in another country.

We also discussed how to protect our citizens from the negative impact of the recession, in particular to avoid mass unemployment and repossessions. Even countries that have a small and highly regulated financial sector, and therefore had no exposure to US sub-prime problems, are also now in recession and looking for ways to minimise its length and effects.

Here, the variation in existing welfare state provision can make a big difference to the level of flexibility Governments have and the levels of fear that workers feel about losing their jobs. In the Netherlands for example, workers get 70% of their salary for a year when they become unemployed, so that when they lose their job they don’t immediately have to worry about losing their home. The Government there is considering giving this money to employers for six months to enable them to reduce working hours or lay off workers temporarily. This long-standing investment in welfare means that the Government has much more scope to move the money around and direct spending in places that it will make the biggest difference. Of course the generous welfare systems in Scandinavia and other parts of Europe have long been the envy of the UK left, but I completely agree with James Purnell (writing here and in ippr’s latest Public Policy Research) that in order to improve welfare benefits and make them as untouchable as the NHS, we need to reform the system. It should focus much more on supporting people rather than simply handing over benefits each week and leaving them there for years and, we should create “a system that offers real help for people who play by the rules”. By moving towards a system more like the Dutch or Danish models, we can protect the welfare state from Tory and tabloid attack and improve the lives of millions of families, through the recession and beyond.

Young Fabians’ event on Gaza

The Young Fabians’ debate on the legacy of Gaza saw a range of arguments put forward and thanks must go to our excellent speakers, Richard Stanforth from Oxfam, Louise Ellman MP from Labour Friends of Israel and Richard Burden MP from the Britain-Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group, all of whom made powerful arguments.

However, whilst recent events have filled countless newspaper columns and dominated the political agenda, already they are being displaced, a plane crash in America and a teenage dad are deemed meatier topics of conversation. It seems that yet again we have had our fill of debate over what should become of the Middle East and moved on to other, clearer cut issues. Perhaps that is why groups like the ones Richard Burden and Louise Ellman represent are so important, they help keep the issue alive even once it disappears from newspapers and TV screens. In order to avoid accusations of political voyeurism, taking an interest only when tensions spill over into open conflict, then this debate must continue.

Each speaker was asked to conclude with what they felt was the one thing that, in the short-term, needed to be done to enable both sides to move forward. Richard Stanforth argued for the depoliticisation of aid, Richard Burden called for immediate action to tackle the humanitarian crisis and Louise Ellman’s top priority was an end to arms’ smuggling. I doubt anyone reading this does not have their own thoughts on the way forward, in which case, get typing, join the debate and be a political voyeur no more…..

Time to say what you think

I am pleased to let you know that the Young Fabians are going to be running a new survey for our members.

It asks you a few questions about yourself, and a few more about what you think the Young Fabians should be working on in the future.

As a member, it’s your chance to make yourself heard and the results will help the Executive Committee plan ahead and provide even more opportunities for you to get involved with our work.

I’ll be sending out a note about how to take part in next weeks update email so keep an eye out for it. Or email me for more details.

p.s. hats off to our Website Editor Sam Strudwick for creating this great blog.

Is there such a thing as a socialist sport?

So, New Year’s resolution number one was to try new things and in this spirit I signed up to a beginners’ course in fencing, of the swords and fancy footwork variety, rather than planks and Ronseal.

However, this has provoked various accusations from friends on the left that I am somehow betraying my political creed, accusations that tend to be swiftly followed with sarcastic comments that next I will take up clay pigeon shooting or show jumping.

Yet this begs the question, what constitutes a socialist sport? I am sure most peoples’ instant response would be football. Football where tickets to a premier league game cost in the region of £40, a replica shirt produced in a far off sweatshop will cost you the same again and pampered players are paid hundreds of times what our teachers and nurses receive. Is this really a socialist sport?

But this strays from the point, the point is that the ideal of sport is of something above politics and the aim of sport is to bring people together. My fencing lessons do this just as much as a local football club or netball team does.

So I say to my critics, leave my humble fencing lessons alone, and who knows, maybe next time I will try clay pigeon shooting.