Former Cabinet minister Alan Milburn, who is leading a new crusade to improve social mobility, has called on schools, universities and employers to improve co-operation to help more young people from ‘ordinary’ backgrounds to enter the professions and higher education.

He also said more emphasis should be put on vocational training than had been the case over the past 40 years to ensure training for good jobs for those not attending university.

The former Labour Health Secretary, who chairs a new commission on social mobility and child poverty, was the keynote speaker at an event organised by Bradford and Leeds law firm Gordons focusing on how regional businesses could help ensure people from all backgrounds get access to good careers.

Mr Milburn, who came from a working-class background in County Durham and revealed he had turned down a peerage, called on employers to devise ways of giving youngsters from all backgrounds a lift.

He praised Gordons for introducing a pioneering apprentice scheme which takes local school-leavers and provides four years’ paid legal executive training, creating a pathway for a career in law. He urged more professional firms to follow suit.

The level of recruitment in Yorkshire by the UK’s top 100 firms was among the lowest in the UK at 45 per cent, whereas they took 90 per cent of staff from the London area.

In the professions, 43 per cent of lawyers and 54 per cent of top journalists had either been privately educated or were Oxbridge graduates. This figure rose to 63 per cent for members of the House of Lords.

He said: “We still have a situation where many good careers are dominated by a social elite; where who you know rather than what you know can open doors. This needs to change.”

Paul Mackie, chairman of Low Moor-based Rex Procter & Partners and vice-president of Bradford Chamber of Commerce, said the launch of E3 Bradford this week, which he will also chair, would seek to involve businesses of all sizes and sectors in driving forward a vocational and enterprise-focused school curriculum aimed at helping youngsters to achieve higher skilled jobs.

Stuart Price, from Morrisons, said the Bradford-based supermarket group was launching two-week work experience programmes for people in communities where it was opening new stores.