🔗 Share this article

As the beleaguered Tories convenes in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its next steps. Doubt remains if a road forward is available. These are difficult days for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

The Missed Opportunity

The situation might have been vastly better if concrete steps had been made on an agenda that matters to people across the country: Levelling up. But the former leadership hadn’t got the first clue on how to transform the trendy talk on social mobility into concrete action. For the two years after the 2019 election, it debated what the concept even meant.

I was perplexed, because I had clearly defined for the Prime Minister what levelling up meant when we first spoke about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was a term I developed and used at the DfE to talk about life chances. It was our guiding principle, and its purpose is straightforward: social mobility is the method by which we achieve fair chances – not by taking chances away from those who already have it, but rather by expanding opportunities to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

The other key DfE phrase we used, “ability is distributed uniformly throughout the nation, however access isn’t”, represented another a intentional wording, embodying the dual components of a fairness agenda. Initially, talent spread evenly but not developed consistently through our learning institutions. Second, opportunities not spread evenly by employers or our economy. Therefore, schools and companies were crucial to achieving stronger social mobility. This constituted an agenda about the societal structure of our country – fostering individual capabilities and linking them with prospects.

The Reality of Implementation

What did the social mobility agenda turn into under Johnson’s Conservatives? A towns fund overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Decorative floral displays and rearranged intersections. An official policy document was released nearly three years after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went unpursued, as well as all the change that it might have driven – in capital, enterprise, economic policy, revenue and in community development. And, of course, in learning, including a university system that has become a punchbag for elected officials – although it remains the most powerful engine of social mobility for individuals from less privileged homes, including myself, this country has had throughout modern times. Possibly the primary source of equal opportunity, working extensively.

Why Hope Matters

Aspiration is vital for our country to thrive. To foster ambition, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are connected; that if people aspire, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to foster a feeling of hope about the future is critical. Analysis by the academic institution at the university and others, newly available, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to boosting academic achievement – led to students in those neighborhoods being up to nearly one-fifth more hopeful about their future than those in equivalent locations without these initiatives in place. The research confirms: just making an genuine beginning on equal chance initiatives can rapidly and effectively change how people feel about their destiny.

Missed Opportunities

Oblivious to this, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in that period, the ruling party ended the initiatives. Why should any person in those areas vote for a political group that made that decision? The targeted programme is a clear case of what might have become a transformative Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that chance was completely wasted. Strategies such as this can create belief and drive. In contrast, as the Conservatives found out, breaking the promise of fair chances is the biggest blunder any political party can make. The public penalized the government for its failure but, above all, for its broken promises on levelling up.

Present Circumstances

Currently the responsibility on life chances and fair access has been transferred to a new administration. The old slogan has been discarded. The new government has its own policy language of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The political group that is steadily supplanting the struggling Conservative party, Reform UK, also has its own language – “economic renewal”. It’s a phrase to talk about new opportunities in regions like the one I grew up in, in South Yorkshire. It promises that an industrial past can reincarnate into an modern manufacturing sector.

For voters, it must seem like a repetitive cycle. Same issue, alternative phrasing. However, so far, no progress.

The Way Forward

Should the current and alternative parties want to avoid the same fate, each group should understand the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that fair chance language is easy to say, but actual achievement of improved opportunities is much harder. The UK’s persistently low equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with the next generation unable to get a proper professional launch, those working hard in employment with few results after the living expenses are met, and citizens throughout the UK without any real hope their offspring will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Leaders can discuss improved access repeatedly. However, which party has the political group that has the thorough strategy on social mobility? I observe no such party. The first to achieve this, wins. Not only for themselves, but, significantly, for a complete society that has never needed equality of opportunity so urgently.