Treasury Doesn’t Understand Social Mobility And Needs Reform, Says Ex-Education Secretary

Former education secretary Justine Greening is sharply critical of the way the Treasury operates (Alamy)

4 min read25 July

The Treasury is the biggest barrier to improving social mobility and requires “root and branch reform”, according to former education secretary Justine Greening.

Reflecting on her time in government, the former Conservative Cabinet minister said the department “does not know how to value human capital”, which is preventing schemes that could alleviate poverty from being implemented.

Speaking on this week's episode of the The Rundown podcast from PoliticsHome, Greening was sharply critical of the way the Treasury is run, despite being a minister there herself during her time as a Tory MP, saying “the only conclusion I can reach is that they seem to think there isn't a problem, that talent is spread evenly, that it already has access to opportunity”.

Greening was a Conservative MP from 2005 to 2019, holding several Cabinet positions. Since leaving frontline politics, she has set up The Purpose Coalition, which advises businesses on removing barriers to social mobility.

Speaking to PoliticsHome, she said there are not enough people working in the Treasury from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“This is difficult to say, but I genuinely question whether there are enough people in that department who actually have led lives like the one I led, starting in Rotherham, and actually have enough understanding of why social mobility matters to people.

“It's too full of too many people who started broadly at the top in society. [It's] not their choice, but literally haven't had those life journeys that give them, maybe the very personal insights that that you'd need to be an expert on social mobility.

“If Britain's big challenge, policy-wise, is social mobility, does the government have enough people who understand social mobility and are experts on social mobility?”

The former MP said today's young people face greater challenges to social mobility than she did earlier in her career. Greening explained that she went from a working-class upbringing in Yorkshire to working in finance and high-level politics, putting her in the position to buy her own home — a possibility which is out of reach for large numbers of young people now.

Greening went on to say that Treasury reform was “long overdue”, calling it the great unreformed department".

“I respect them, but it is time to really have root and branch reform. It’s bonkers that a Chancellor gets to give the main strategy speech of the government, rather than the Prime Minister.

"I mean literally the whole thing, I've never seen anything like it anywhere than in government. And it's time it got made fit for purpose and had a proper spring clean.”

Greening, who has long had a deep interest in social mobility, said she came to realise during her time in office that it was the Treasury’s attitude to valuing spending that prevented it from green-lighting projects that could have removed barriers to success.

“It does not know how to look at business cases in relation to human capital,” she said.

“And it does therefore not see the value of investing upstream in education and upstream in keeping lives on track, to stop them going off track.

“And therefore, actually, ironically, its strategy becomes self-defeating.”

Former education secretary Justine Greening — The former education secretary Justine Greening is critical of the Treasury's record on social mobility (Alamy)

Speaking just over a year into Labour’s term in office, she said the new government had yet to make big strides on social mobility, and could regret not hitting the ground running when it won the election last summer.

“Time is ticking by, and we're in a version of Britain where there's this new party Reform snapping at everyone's heels,” Greening said.

“It's all about delivery, if you don't deliver, you're out and so there's no time to waste faffing around with strategies.”