Labour’s Bridget Phillipson has said class must be treated as a central part of Britain’s equalities agenda, as the Government launches its first dedicated Class Unit to tackle entrenched disadvantage and improve opportunities for working-class families.
Phillipson said governments had rightly examined how race, sex and disability can shape people’s lives, but argued that socioeconomic background must now receive the same serious attention.
She said:
“It’s time we looked at the impact of class too.”
Phillipson added:
“When inequality of any kind holds people back and limits life chances, it’s Labour’s job to tackle it.”
The intervention follows the Government’s announcement of a new Class Unit within the Office for Equality and Opportunity, intended to put social mobility and socioeconomic inequality closer to the centre of Whitehall decision-making.
First dedicated government Class Unit
The new unit will focus on improving outcomes for low-income families and disadvantaged communities, including tackling child poverty and examining how class affects access to education, employment and public services.
The Government says the move is designed to address longstanding inequalities that have too often been overlooked by policymakers.
Phillipson, in her role as Minister for Women and Equalities, will oversee the new approach.
The Social Mobility Commission will be closed as part of the wider reorganisation, with its work brought more directly into government. Ministers argue that this will make it easier to connect social mobility policy with decisions across departments.
Greater focus on working-class communities
The announcement has attracted particular attention because ministers want the new unit to examine outcomes among white working-class communities alongside disadvantaged people from every ethnic background.
Recent research has highlighted significant educational challenges facing children from some white working-class backgrounds, including poorer attainment and lower progression into higher education.
The Government’s approach is intended to avoid treating different forms of disadvantage as competing with one another, instead examining how class, poverty, geography and other factors can overlap.
Socioeconomic duty for public bodies
Labour is also moving ahead with a socioeconomic duty requiring public bodies to consider how major decisions can reduce inequalities experienced by people on lower incomes.
The policy is intended to ensure that questions of poverty and economic disadvantage are considered when decisions are taken about public services and spending.
For Labour, this represents a broader shift towards treating class inequality as a structural issue rather than simply a question of individual social mobility.
Phillipson: inequality limits life chances
Phillipson’s argument is that a child’s background should not determine the opportunities available to them.
Her comments come as Labour pursues wider reforms aimed at closing the gap between education and employment, expanding apprenticeships and vocational opportunities, and giving young people better access to work experience and mentoring, as Education Secretary Lucy Powell set out this week.
The new Class Unit will complement those reforms by looking across government at the barriers faced by people growing up in poorer households and communities.
There has been some criticism of the decision to abolish the independent Social Mobility Commission, whose chair Alun Francis has questioned whether bringing the work directly into government will improve scrutiny. Ministers, however, argue the new structure will give class inequality greater influence over policy rather than leaving it at arm’s length.
Labour puts class back at centre of politics
Phillipson’s intervention also marks an attempt by Labour to speak more explicitly about class at a time when economic insecurity, regional inequality and declining social mobility are increasingly prominent political issues.
The Government’s argument is that tackling inequality cannot mean focusing on one group while ignoring another, and that working-class communities across Britain need to see tangible improvements in education, jobs, housing and living standards.
For Phillipson, the principle is straightforward: where class and poverty restrict people’s chances in life, government has a responsibility to act — and Labour intends to make tackling those barriers a central part of its equalities agenda.
