Greens blame austerity, cuts to public services and a broken electoral system for lack of social mobility
28 November 2017
A new report has ranked every region of the country on social mobility, concluding there is a “postcode lottery” on the ability to improve educational or job prospects. However, Greens have pointed to funding cuts, privatisation and outsourcing and the loss of one million public sector jobs since 2010 as reasons for a lack of social mobility. They also blame an ‘unfair and unrepresentative first-past-the-post electoral system’.
Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for the South West and Green Party speaker on economy and finance, said:
“This new report shows the impacts of a decade of austerity on some of the most disadvantaged people in our society. This is a story of neglect of vulnerable communities and the consequences of the chronic under-funding of the services they rely on to improve their life chances. The public sector has also traditionally offered a route to skilled and high-paid employment for those outside the major urban centres so the loss of one million public sector jobs due to funding cuts has closed off these opportunities in many regional economics.”
Scott Cato blamed a broken electoral system for a failure to improve the life chances of the poorest:
“Many Conservatives MPs have no incentive to do anything to improve the life chances of some of the most excluded in society as they sit in safe seats under our desperately unfair and unrepresentative first-past-the-post electoral system. We need electoral reform and a system of proportional representation to give the powerless a voice in elections.”
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