Bobby Dean MP Pushes for Stronger Financial Education in Schools

Bobby Dean MP, Carshalton and Wallington is calling for improvements in financial education to ensure young people are better equipped with essential money-management skills.

Speaking in Parliament, Bobby highlighted the need for financial literacy to be treated as a core part of the curriculum, rather than an optional extra. Bobby said:

"All Members in this House have probably at some point come across somebody—perhaps a constituent on a doorstep, a family member or a friend—who says that people just do not get taught what they need to know in life at school… Nowhere is this more apparent than in financial literacy.

“It is not just about adding and subtracting, or even working out percentages. But budgeting, debt management, saving for the future and investing.

“These are things that can empower people to make better decisions for their lives and set them up to achieve their goals. But we let people down when we view these skills as specialist rather than essential.”

Bobby also drew upon research from Moneybox that revealed that two thirds of Britons are £65,000 worse off on average due to low financial confidence and knowledge. It suggests that if people were better equipped it would increase to a potential £2 trillion of extra spending power in the UK economy over their lifetimes.

The Liberal Democrats are calling for financial education to be introduced earlier in schools and Bobby is urging the government to take action by integrating financial skills into the core curriculum.

Read the full text of Bobby’s speech here