Financial inclusion for young people
On 30th June, Westminster Hall debated financial inclusion for young people, with Economic Secretary to the Treasury Rachel Blake responding on behalf of the Government. The debate revealed a significant gap between parliamentary concern and ministerial engagement, particularly on financial education.
Josh Dean (Labour, Hertford & Stortford) set out the scale of the problem: 2 million young adults in financially vulnerable circumstances, facing thin credit files, unaffordable insurance, inadequate savings, and mental health impacts from financial anxiety.
Subsequent speakers — spanning Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat benches — emphasised financial education as essential, with Amanda Hack (Labour, North West Leicestershire, former All Party Parliamentary Group co-chair on financial education) pressing for mandatory primary and secondary provision and extension to the critical 16–24 transition period; Luke Charters (Labour, York Outer, former FCA regulator) warning of toxic finfluencers and unregulated financial advice via social media; and Richard Fuller (Conservative, North Bedfordshire) asking specific questions about school compliance with existing financial education requirements.
AI/EdTech was entirely absent from the debate. Given teacher capacity constraints (which multiple speakers acknowledged) and the 16–24 void, AI-supplemented delivery via trusted platforms could have been framed as scalable without waiting for systemic curriculum reform. The silence was striking for a debate involving MPs familiar with fintech.
Independent advice was barely touched. Yet for thin-file cohorts and major life decisions (university/apprenticeships), trust-based, conflict-free guidance is foundational to inclusion, not incidental.
There was no mention of ISA cash drag. No mention. The ISA framework’s design incentivises savings hoarding over productive investment; young people with cash holdings are economically inert. This reinforces wealth concentration and undercuts growth.
Not a single contribution linked low UK growth to financial outcomes for young people. The debate treated financial inclusion as a demand-side problem (access, affordability) without addressing supply-side constraints (low wages, insecure employment).
References to aspiration were largely absent. Most contributions framed financial inclusion defensively (avoid debt, build resilience, mitigate crisis), not aspirationally (build wealth, invest, create opportunity). The exception was Sarah Olney’s point on retail investment gaps and compound interest, but it was underdeveloped.
Lasting barely three minutes, Blake’s response was painfully inadequate. She addressed youth employment funding and mental health generalities but conspicuously avoided financial education itself. She deferred detailed answers on insurance affordability, credit information sharing, scam regulation and the 16–24 education gap.
The debate reflected clear cross-party consensus that financial education should be mandatory, embedded in curricula, and extended to post-16 provision. Blake’s response, by contrast, simply noted that financial education is included in primary curriculum plans — sidestepping implementation, teacher competence, confidence and capacity, and the post-16 void that speakers identified as critical.
The ministerial response did not match the parliamentary urgency on financial education or the evidence of its absence despite being nominally compulsory.
You can read the full transcript of the debate here.
