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The Government has announced a series of measures to promote the aspirations of young people from all backgrounds and put social mobility at the heart of plans for economic growth.

Ministers today published a response to ‘Unleashing Aspiration’, the final report from the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions, setting out plans to implement the vast majority of the panel’s 88 recommendations.

• Read the Government’s response

The measures include the creation of an online National Internship Service and a Social Mobility Commission, and a guarantee for around 130,000 of the brightest pupils from low income backgrounds to benefit from structured assistance at secondary school.

The panel, led by Alan Milburn MP, had challenged Government to do more to ensure that talented people can succeed in top professions regardless of their social or economic background.

Speaking in his weekly podcast yesterday, the Prime Minister said:

“We can’t be a truly aspirational society if some people are still denied the chance to get on and not just get by. And although we have raised the glass ceiling we have yet to break it. That is why our priority will be to remove all the barriers that are holding Britain back - to ensure that it is character and endeavour that matter most.”

Earlier today, Gordon Brown, Mr Milburn and Business Minister Pat McFadden visited St George’s Hospital in Tooting, south London, to meet trainees taking part in a scheme to help young people from less advantaged backgrounds enter the medical profession.

Mr McFadden co-ordinated the Government response to the panel’s report. He said:

“This is about opening up opportunity to the broad majority in Britain, to ensure that those who have the ability also get the chance to do the kinds of professional jobs which are going to grow in number in future years. The measures we have announced in recent months, and the further steps we announce today will help raise the aspirations of young people and they demonstrate our long-term commitment to a more socially mobile society.”

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Tags: Panel on Fair Access to the Professions, social mobility, Unleashing Aspiration