Field caught between reality and fantasy

Frank Field’s been thinking. He will make his report on poverty next week and he hints at its contents in an extensive interview with the Times (£). He is convinced that there is more to social mobility than money and he has some brilliantly simple ideas to alleviate poverty. He advocates creating four or five terms in the school year to shorten the long summer holiday, which he argues disadvantages the poor.

‘They have less help at home so they lose out even more in long holidays. They drop behind, they are not being read to or tutored or talked to in the same way as many middle-class children. They have often fallen behind by the beginning of the next school year.The school year is also out of kilter with mums working. Every parents’ group I have met has said they dread the long summer holiday.’