An educational charity called today for a cross-party commission to examine the reasons why Britain has one of the worst rates of social mobility in the world.

Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust, said while social mobility in the UK has stabilised in recent years it is still at a very low level compared to other European countries and the US, and that the chance of a good education was key to the problem.

Children born in the UK in 1970 have less chance of escaping poverty than those born in 1958, according to the interim findings of research being carried out for the trust.

Sir Peter told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that educational opportunities are still more likely to go to well-off people, despite a decade of Labour government.

“We really have the worst of all worlds: we have got inequality of opportunity with inequality of outcome. I think we are in a really terrible position. This is too important for party politics and we need a cross-party commission to really look at this,” he said.

He also suggested a return to taxpayer-funded places for less well-off pupils at independent schools.

The Conservative leader, David Cameron, said the research was “staggering” and that real improvements would come from a generation of non-selective schools such as Labour’s city academies.

Mr Cameron said: “If people aren’t achieving according to their talents and according to their potential, then it’s a huge waste for them, a huge waste for society and it’s also deeply unfair.”

He said making it easier for people to open new schools was the key to improving standards for all, alongside fostering “strong and stable families” and early years provision.

“If we spend our time just working out how to divide up a fixed number of good school places, we will never get anywhere. What we’ve got to do is increase the number of good school places.”

But he did not specify grammar schools as the solution. “Making a fixed decision at 11 between one sort of school and another is not the right answer.”

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The Government may ask giant state owned corporations and banks to reconsider the dates of their IPO (initial public offering), for fear that the stock market may suffer from “indigestion” if all of them make IPO at the same time.

Tran Bac Ha, Director General of the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV), has asked the Government to re-arrange the dates for the IPOs of important state owned corporations and banks scheduled to take place in the second half of the year.

According to Mr Ha, an overly high supply of shares may lead to the decrease of share prices, while creating losses for the state.

Share ‘indigestion’
The IPOs of a series of big state owned corporations at the same time may make the market stumble. The big state owned corporations include BIDV, which will have the expected chartered capital of VND14tril ($0.875bil). Though proposing the time rearrangement, Mr Ha said that BIDV would still carry out its IPO as previously planned.

When asked if the IPO of Vietnam Industrial and Commercial Bank (Incombank), also slated for the fourth quarter of the year, would have any bad impact on either big bank, Mr Ha said tersely: “The same quarter, but not the same month”.

With the tentative chartered capital of VND10tril, Vietcombank has submitted its equitisation plan to the Prime Minister. Nguyen Thi Thu Ha, Deputy Director General of Vietcombank, said that with the current condition of the stock market, it would be difficult to sell shares at high prices, but added that the situation might be different in August.

Huynh Nam Dung, Chairman of the Mekong Housing Development Bank (MHB), said that he had not received any instruction from the Prime Minister relating to the IPO delays; therefore, the bank was now still moving ahead with its previously set plan. He said that MHB might perform IPO in October.

Meanwhile, investors have heard that other state owned giants in telecommunications and brewing are also planning to make IPO in the upcoming months.

Le Ngoc Minh, Director of MobiFone, said that the company had not received any instructions on an IPO roadmap rearrangement. MobiFone previously planned to auction its shares in December at the latest. Meanwhile, Sabeco, a brewery and drink company, is having its assets valued, and its IPO plan is expected to be drawn up to be submitted to the Ministry of Industry and the Government by early August.

After the plan is approved, Sabeco will auction shares equivalent to 20% of chartered capital in the first phase, and sell another 20% in 2008. Another brewery company, Habeco, is planning to make IPO at the end of the third quarter or early in the fourth quarter.

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