Simon Jenkins is right that raising VAT to 20% was a mistake (Social immobility is built into the way we live and learn, 6 April), but for the wrong reason.
He claims that the VAT increase will stunt growth and that growth is the great engineer of social mobility, but this is plainly not true. Until the recent recession we had an unprecedented period of growth – but it did little or nothing for social mobility. What was striking about the period of greatest social mobility (the 1960s and 1970s) was not GDP but relatively low purchase taxes (VAT) and high direct taxes on income – as well as, of course, free university tuition and generous maintenance grants. Moreover, social distance is a more significant problem than social immobility – and that is one of the reasons why private schools are such a cancer in our society. I am not particularly keen to live in a society marked by vast numbers of citizens clambering, sliding and kicking up and down a well-greased pole; it is more important to shorten the pole than to grease it. Again, it was not growth that shortened social and economic distances in the 1960s and 1970s but a sustained assault on higher incomes through direct taxation.
Professor Mark Doel
Sheffield Hallam University
• I usually find Simon Jenkins's articles stimulating and informative, but I was staggered to realise just how ignorant I had been in not realising that social immobility in Britain is the fault of "rich unionists such as Bob Crow living in subsidised social housing". I certainly wouldn't attempt to speak for Mr Crow but I would be surprised if, at the time he took up his subsidised residence, there were not a lot more of the same available. The scarcity of social housing is now being used by those passionate (Tory) advocates of social mobility to set working-class families against other working-class families.
Robin Gardner
West Bridgford, Nottingham
• I nearly choked on my Valencia paella when I read in my €3.20 copy of your paper that "social immobility … is rooted … in a Victorian legacy of one-industry cities and towns such as Liverpool". As a scouse pensioner on a flying visit to see our Luke (research scientist in the orange capital of Spain), I feel obliged to chide Simon Jenkins for not grasping what another outsider realised about Liverpool. The wonderful Margaret Simey opined that "this was a port, a great port" but "ominously nothing but a port". Viva Liverpool.
Ron Noon
Liverpool
• Simon Jenkins is right to describe the government student fees policy as a "social mobility tax", but perhaps not quite in the way he meant (You chose to be coalition arm-candy so accept it, Nick: you are a punchbag, 8 April). The rational decision for anyone leaving university with an enormous debt is to get mobile and relocate abroad, away from UK tax jurisdiction and therefore never repay the loan plus interest. So the policy will assist another aspect of government policy – the export drive.
Unfortunately, we will be exporting talent in which we have invested a great deal of money, to the benefit of our competitors. At the same time EU students (who do not pay "overseas fees") will be able to come here, study free, and then go back home. Like so many of this government's policies this has not been thought through. And in this case there is not even the excuse of the need for urgent action to address the deficit because there are no immediate savings – and probably a long-term cost rather than saving. The unwillingness of this government to heed the most obvious words of caution smacks of arrogance bordering on irresponsibility.
Norman Gowar
Stone-cum-Ebony, Kent
• As the son of a coal miner and school cleaner whose education was picked up in dribs and drabs through night classes before I could attend university, I find Nick Clegg's pronouncement, "We are going to move through each part of the life cycle... to identify areas that are holding people back" astonishing (Report, 6 April). What is there to identify? In reneging on his party's manifesto on education, he must see the horse has already bolted and the stable door is hanging off its hinges.
Professor Andrew Melrose
University of Winchester
• I welcome the government's social mobility strategy, Opening Doors, Breaking Barriers. The homeless young people that Centrepoint supports have long been locked out of the "who knows who" world that can open doors to so many opportunities. I would encourage the government not just to ban informal internships for young people in Whitehall, which is likely to have little impact on the most disadvantaged, but also to think of creative ways of making such opportunities accessible to homeless young people. For example, the Centrepoint Youth Educator Programme trains young people to deliver training to staff and other young people. This initiative has directly led to young people finding jobs. We need to ensure disadvantaged groups find out about other opportunities like this that could provide the vital step up they need.
Seyi Obakin
Chief executive, Centrepoint
• I am a student at Loughborough University, with aspirations of working in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Last week I went to the FCO and asked about internships, and was asked by the lady at reception if I had a contact in the FCO. After telling her I didn't, I was then told in no uncertain terms that in order to get an internship I had to have a contact. No wonder I found Clegg's speech ironic.
Chris Aikens
Tring, Hertfordshire
• Government attempts to improve social mobility will only be taken seriously when they have the courage to address the most socially immobile institution within the British state – the monarchy. We tell children that they can rise to any job in these islands, as long as it's not head of state. That position – somewhat farcically in the 21st century – is based not on ability or merit, but upon privilege and being born into the right family; in this case, the houses of Hanover, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Gareth Morgan
Abergele, Clwyd
• The government's social mobility announcement to make internships more accessible by tackling the unfair advantage well-connected students have to career opportunities is certainly a step in the right direction, which we welcome. Internships play a pivotal role for all graduates as they make the transition between university and the world of work.
However, the Class of 2010 report we published on graduates' aspirations and concerns about their future careers shows that access isn't the only issue that needs to be addressed. It is just as important for internship programmes to deliver a set of key standards, in order for the younger generation to be equipped with the skills they need in their future careers. An internship charter that encourages employers to uphold minimum requirements will ensure fairness and transparency, and also support graduates' early career choices.
Ian Passmore
Managing director, Endsleigh Insurance
• The coalition's decision to scrap Aimhigher will set social mobility via education back a decade. Aimhigher was an unalloyed good thing, introduced to raise the aspirations of schoolchildren, to show them how they could benefit from higher education, and to lead them through the daunting decisions between GCSE and progression to university. Universities across the country, including my own, have formed successful partnerships with Aimhigher teams. These teams have the local knowledge necessary to target children who are at risk of not fulfilling their academic potential. They have been able to co-ordinate activities for high achievers spread thinly across many schools.
Two things will happen when Aimhigher ends in July. First there will be a serious gap in the provision of aspiration-raising activities co-ordinated across schools. There will be a lost generation. Then there will be some new provision, but what form will it take? The pupil premium will devolve spending power to schools, but there will be no co-ordination. The things we will lose might be as simple as someone to organise the minibus for 15 children from different schools to visit Oxford for the day, or as sophisticated as the identification and monitoring of potential university applicants as early as years 8 and 9.
In the local authorities where Oriel College's outreach activities are focused we have seen 50-100% cuts in the budgets for this type of work, and the expertise and experience of the Aimhigher teams is being squandered in a slew of redundancies.
Individual schools cannot be expected to fill the gap. They have many priorities and stretched budgets. Universities are too distant and cannot replicate the local knowledge and connections of the Aimhigher teams. This all adds up to an assault on social mobility, and exposes the coalition's disregard for the aspirations of young people.
Dr Ian Forrest
Tutor for admissions, Oriel College, Oxford