Luke Myer MP has joined campaigners from the 93% Club and the Sutton Trust in Parliament to push for long-overdue action to tackle class discrimination in the workplace – calling on the Government to commission a review into adding social class as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act.
At the event, Luke met members of the 93% Club, the UK’s largest network of state-educated students and professionals, discussing new evidence from the Big State School Survey. The survey lays bare how social class continues to shape life chances in Britain, from university to the workplace. Despite 93% of the country attending state schools, privately educated people remain disproportionately represented in top professions – and three quarters of working-class people report being mocked or looked down on at work because of their background.
Luke Myer MP is proud to be state educated, having attended St Peter’s Primary School and Freebrough Specialist Engineering College in Brotton, East Cleveland. At the event Luke spoke with campaigners about barriers facing state-educated young people and the case for closing the “class pay gap”, which still sees working-class employees earn over £6,000 a year less than peers from more privileged backgrounds.
The visit comes as Labour nationally delivers the biggest child poverty reduction programme in a generation: free breakfast clubs rolling out across the country (with pilots in our constituency at Lockwood, Pennyman, Skelton and St Bernadette’s already underway), expanded free school meals to 500,000 more children, thousands of new teachers, expanded childcare, and the historic scrapping of the two-child limit to lift 450,000 children out of poverty. Locally, Labour councils in Middlesbrough and Redcar & Cleveland are leading the way with automatic enrolment for free school meals – unlocking over £765,000 for local schools – and Middlesbrough’s 10×10 Childhood Guarantee to give every child essential life experiences.
Speaking after the event, Luke Myer MP said:
“If talent is spread equally across the country, opportunity should be too – but for far too many working-class kids, that just isn’t the case. We’ve smashed the idea that this is inevitable. From ending the two-child cap to rolling out breakfast clubs, Labour is showing what it looks like when a government is on the side of every child, not just the privileged few. I’m proud to stand with the 93% Club in calling for class to be recognised, measured and tackled – because no one should be held back for the simple fact of where they went to school.”
Luke has consistently championed opportunity for working-class young people throughout his career – from working in education and serving as Cabinet Member for Children in Redcar & Cleveland to his work in Parliament over the last year. As MP, he has raised the alarm about the deep class attainment gap, asking ministers to focus resources on the places that need them most (November 2025) and pressing for early intervention for working-class boys in particular (July 2025).