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While the existentially challenged Conservative party gathers in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has much to ponder regarding its path forward. There is uncertainty if a viable path exists at all. These are challenging circumstances for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

An Alternate Reality

Things could have turned out so different if tangible progress had been made on an policy focus that matters to people across the country: Levelling up. However Boris Johnson’s government hadn’t got the slightest idea on how to transform the trendy talk on social mobility into policy reality. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it discussed what the term actually signified.

It seemed strange to me, because I’d already told Johnson what levelling up meant when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was a concept I originated and used at the DfE to talk about social mobility. This became our guiding principle, and its definition is straightforward: levelling up is the method by which we realize equal access – not through reducing opportunity away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by expanding options to those that are without.

The Core Concept

The other key education department term we used, “ability is distributed uniformly throughout the nation, yet chances are not”, represented another a purposeful phrase, representing the dual components of a social mobility strategy. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not cultivated evenly through our education system. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our market. As a result, education and business were crucial to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This was an agenda about the community framework of our country – supporting individual capabilities and providing access to opportunities.

The Reality of Implementation

What did the social mobility agenda turn into under the Tory administration? A towns fund managed by the DLUHC. Hanging baskets and redeveloped traffic systems. An official policy document was launched nearly three years after Johnson became leader, which saw existing policy approaches relabelled under the fresh social mobility slogan.

As a result, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went undeveloped, as well as all the change that it may have generated – in investment, business, fiscal strategy, taxation and in community development. Moreover, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a target for politicians of all stripes – even though it remains the primary vehicle of life improvement for individuals from less privileged homes, like me, this country has had in recent decades. Maybe the only engine of social mobility, functioning widely.

The Role of Ambition

Hope is vital for our country to prosper. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are linked; that if people aim high, they can attain. For all administrations, being able to instil a outlook of positivity about the future is crucial. Studies by the research body at the academic establishment and others, published last month, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I introduced as education secretary – locally targeted strategies to enhancing learning results – led to youth in those communities being up to a significant margin more hopeful about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations without these schemes in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on fair opportunity strategies can swiftly and beneficially change how people view their prospects.

Squandered Chances

Unaware of these findings, and in the middle of its new leader election, in autumn 2022, the Tory administration closed opportunity areas down. Why should any person in those regions vote for a party that took that action? The targeted programme is a single instance of what could have been a revolutionary Conservative government agenda on levelling up, but that chance was hopelessly squandered. Approaches such as this can generate optimism and ambition. Conversely, as the ruling party discovered, reneging on commitments of social mobility is the most expensive error any leadership can make. The electorate penalized the leadership for its incompetence but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

Currently the mandate on social mobility and fair access has been taken up by a opposition party. The levelling up rhetoric has been discarded. The current administration has its own policy language of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The party that is increasingly displacing the struggling Tories, the challenger, also has its own terminology – “industrial revival”. The terminology to talk about new opportunities in regions like the one I was raised in, in South Yorkshire. It promises that an former economic strength can revive into an industrial future.

For voters, it must feel like a déjà vu experience. Identical problem, new terminology. However, so far, no progress.

The Way Forward

Whether the government and opposition want to prevent the identical outcome, the respective organizations should take lessons from the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is simple terminology, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is far more challenging. The UK’s endemically weak life chances remains the key issue for our country, with the next generation unable to get a proper professional launch, those putting in effort in employment with little to show after the rent has been paid, and citizens throughout the UK without any real hope their offspring will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Elected officials can talk about equal chances repeatedly. Yet where is the organization that has the complete plan on life chances? None appear to exist. Whoever gets there first, succeeds. Not just for their party, but, more importantly, for a whole country that has desperately requires fair chances so urgently.