Tory MP Justine Greening puts a shift in at Bramley cafe to promote social mobility

Ms Greening will visit the Bramley branch of Morrisons — where she secured her first job — to promote a cross-party initiative encouraging businesses to offer more opportunities to children and young people.

The Conservative politician, who left her post as education minister in a Cabinet reshuffle in January, was one of the first members of staff at the Bramley branch, working in the café.

It was the first step on the social mobility ladder for the working class girl from Rotherham on her journey to becoming a Government minister.

Ms Greening said: “I spent lots of time there over lots of Saturdays.

“It taught me about work, keeping to a schedule, being in a workplace and getting up on time and it gave me a sense of what business is about.”

Ms Greening said she had worked her way up the ladder with “a lot of hard work” — becoming the first person in her family to attend university.

“It was very hard for me and I want to make that easier for people growing up,” she said.

Asked how increasing university tuition fees and an increasingly stretched education budget would boost social mobility, Ms Greening said more young people from disadvantaged backgrounds were attending university than ever before and children from disadvantaged families were making more progress at school.

“What’s crucial is businesses step up to the plate,” she said.

Ms Greening launched the Social Mobility Pledge in March and has visited businesses across the country to encourage them to sign up.

The pledge encourages businesses to do three things — work with local schools and colleges, offer work experience and apprenticeships and adopt open recruitment policies such as taking anonymous applications.

Ms Greening said: “I want businesses to open their doors because I certainly would have liked more access to local businesses growing up.”

She said encouraging more businesses to accept anonymised job applications would boost prospects for candidates from black and mixed race backgrounds.

“We know research shows that bosses will subconsciously filter out kids that are called Kevin, for example, and that’s wrong because it means they are missing out on talent,” she said.

Companies such as John Lewis, Marks and Spencer, Vodafone, BT and PricewaterhouseCoopers are among those to have signed up to the pledge.

Ms Greening said: “I want to be someone who takes responsibility for change happening.

“I’m so committed to it, I chose to leave Government so I could work on this.”

When challenged over the image of Conservative politicians being born into wealth Ms Greening said there were “a lot of working class MPs from different backgrounds” in the party.

“This party is about equality and opportunity for people,” she said.

A survey conducted by the Social Mobility Pledge found that 59 per cent of people in Yorkshire think it is difficult or very difficult for a disadvantaged person in the UK to do well in life.