MORE people in the North-East than anywhere else in the country believe that social background determines chances of success in life.

New research from the Social Mobility Commission has revealed that people think Britain’s “deep social mobility problem” is getting worse.

Commission chairman and former Darlington MP, Alan Milburn, said young people in particular “feel like they are on the wrong side of a profound unfairness” in society.

The Government advisory body’s findings, based on a poll of almost 5,000 people by YouGov conducted before the General Election, showed that less than a third of those surveyed – 32 per cent – believed everyone has a fair chance regardless of their background.

According to the research, 76 per cent of people in the North-East said there are ‘fairly or very’ large differences in opportunity depending on where a person lives – the highest figure in the country.

Three in five people [61 per cent] of people living in the North-East said the opportunities for people to progress, compared to other parts of the country, are poor.

And a similar number [60 per cent] of those who grew up in the region, but have since moved away, think their chances would have been more limited if they had stayed in the North-East.

People in the North-East are more likely than those in the rest of the country to think that they are better off than their parents – but are less likely to think they received a better education.

The survey, titled The Social Mobility Barometer, will be followed up with polls in each of the next four years.

Former Labour minister Mr Milburn, who was born in Tow Law and grew up in Newcastle, said the research showed that the social mobility problem, for this generation of young people in particular, “is getting worse not better”.

He said: “Young people increasingly feel like they are on the wrong side of a profound unfairness in British society – and they are unhappy about it.

“Perhaps unsurprisingly, what could be dubbed the ‘revenge of the young’ was evident at the General Election with record numbers of young people turning out to vote.

“Down the generations, hope has been a defining characteristic of the young, but this poll suggests that today youthful pessimism is becoming the norm. There is a stark inter-generational divide about Britain’s social mobility prospects.”

He said that the “20th century promise that each generation would be better off than the preceding one is being broken”.

He added that the research was a “wake-up call for the new government”, and said: “Cracking Britain’s social mobility problem has to become its defining domestic priority.”