The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, has unveiled the Coalition Government’s Social Mobility Strategy. The new strategy aims to ensure everyone has a fair opportunity to fulfil their potential, regardless of the circumstances of their birth.

I believe this has the potential to be quite exciting, and very relevant at a time when money is tight, jobs are scarce, and the young can no longer take for granted that they will do better than their parents. We are in a place unknown for over 50 years, where society is no longer run along strict lines and yet the money and entrepreneurial possibilities of the last 30 years seem no longer to be there either.

The Social Mobility Strategy -Opening Doors, Breaking Barriers focuses on ensuring that everyone has a fair chance get a better job than their parents. It aims to tackle unfairness at every stage of life with specific measures to improve social mobility from the Foundation Years to school and adulthood.

For the first time, a complete set of ‘trackers’ are being published to measure how well the Government is doing in making society fairer. A Ministerial Group on Social Mobility will begin to co-ordinate work across Government, and a Commission will report on progress.

This cannot be done just through  monitoring and throwing money at people from a young age. Differences in income are not the sole problem, and link between growth and mobility is not straightforward. However, every Lib Dem knows that we know nothing, and you know nothing, without information and background. So this is a welcome start, and will lead to a restructuring of government around a future for children that is distinctly Liberal.

The Deputy Prime Minister is asking the right questions, and putting fairness front and centre of the Government’s social policy.

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