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Social Mobility and the Professions

It is important in these debates to ensure that the emphasis is on all groups and not just on some. However, we also have to recognise that different people from different backgrounds have different starting points in life. There is no equality of life chances at the beginning of life, and public policy will quite rightly want to intervene to ensure that life chances are made available subsequently. My point is a simple one, however. I believe that things have fundamentally changed in, for example, the civil service. There was a time when the debate in the civil service centred on its being all white and all male. That might still be overwhelmingly true, but it is less so. What was the change that made the biggest difference? Of course, some will say that it was the changes in legislation that we passed in this place, but what really made the difference was changes in information. That is an area that we need deeply to consider.