🔗 Share this article

While the beleaguered Conservative party convenes in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a road forward is available. These are challenging circumstances for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

The Missed Opportunity

The situation might have been vastly better if tangible progress had been made on an priority that matters to people throughout the UK: Social mobility. But the former leadership hadn’t got the slightest idea on how to transform his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it argued over what the term truly represented.

It seemed strange to me, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up signified when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was language I created and used at the DfE to talk about life chances. It was our guiding principle, and its definition is unambiguous: social mobility is the approach by which we realize equal access – not by taking chances away from those who possess it, but rather by providing options to those that are without.

Fundamental Idea

An additional vital DfE phrase we used, “talent is spread evenly throughout the nation, however access isn’t”, again was a purposeful phrase, representing the two halves of a fairness agenda. First, ability distributed uniformly but not nurtured uniformly through our schools and colleges. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by the private sector or our market. Therefore, learning and employment were key to achieving better life chances. This was an priority about the societal structure of our country – supporting human talent and providing access to prospects.

What Levelling Up Became

How did levelling up turn into under the previous government? A towns fund administered out of the DLUHC. Decorative floral displays and rearranged intersections. An official policy document was launched almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw existing policy approaches relabelled under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went undeveloped, as well as all the change that it might have driven – in capital, enterprise, financial planning, taxation and in local regeneration. Additionally, in schooling, including a university system that has become a punchbag for politicians of all stripes – although it remains the most powerful engine of upward movement for individuals from less privileged homes, including myself, this country has had in recent decades. Perhaps the primary source of equal opportunity, functioning widely.

The Role of Ambition

Hope is vital for our country to succeed. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are related; that if people dream big, they can attain. For any government, being able to create a feeling of hope about the years ahead is important. Studies by the Institute for Policy Research at the university and others, recently released, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I established during my tenure – locally targeted strategies to improving education outcomes – led to students in those areas being up to nearly one-fifth more optimistic about their prospects than those in similar areas without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an genuine beginning on pro-social mobility policy can rapidly and effectively change how people feel about their future.

Missed Opportunities

Ignoring this evidence, and in the midst of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in that period, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. Why should any person in those areas vote for a party that made that decision? The targeted programme is one example of what might have become a revolutionary Conservative government agenda on social mobility, but that chance was completely wasted. Methods such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. Conversely, as the Conservatives learned, breaking the promise of fair chances is the biggest blunder any government can make. The electorate held accountable the government for its ineffectiveness but, primarily, for its unfulfilled commitments on levelling up.

Today’s Political Reality

Now the responsibility on equal opportunity and equal chances has been transferred to a Labour government. The levelling up rhetoric has been cast off. The current administration has its own policy language of “removing obstacles to success”. The party that is steadily supplanting the hapless incumbents, Reform UK, also has its own message – “reindustrialisation”. The terminology to talk about fresh prospects in areas like the one I grew up in, in my hometown. It suggests that an former economic strength can revive into an industrial future.

For the public, it must appear as a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, alternative phrasing. Yet, currently, little improvement.

What Must Change

Should the current and alternative parties want to prevent the same fate, the respective organizations should understand the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but effective implementation of more equal results is much harder. Britain’s persistently low life chances remains the central problem for our country, with youth unable to get a proper professional launch, those working hard in employment with little to show after the housing costs are covered, and individuals nationwide without any actual expectation their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Politicians can talk about fairer opportunities repeatedly. However, which party has the party that has the complete plan on life chances? None appear to exist. Whoever gets there first, prevails. Not just for themselves, but, significantly, for a whole country that has urgently needs fair chances so urgently.