🔗 Share this article

While the beleaguered Conservative party gathers in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its future direction. There is uncertainty if a road forward remains open. We are in difficult days for a political party that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to voters.

What Could Have Been

The situation might have been markedly improved if concrete steps had been made on an priority that matters to people nationwide: Social mobility. Yet Boris Johnson’s government did not possess the basic understanding on how to transform the trendy talk on social mobility into concrete action. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it argued over what the term actually signified.

It seemed strange to me, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up signified when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. This terminology was a concept I originated and used at the Department for Education to talk about social mobility. This became our guiding principle, and its purpose is unambiguous: levelling up is the approach by which we achieve fair chances – not by taking chances away from those who already have it, but rather by providing opportunities to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

An additional vital education department term we used, “talent is spread evenly throughout the nation, however access isn’t”, again was a intentional wording, reflecting the two halves of a fairness agenda. First, talent spread evenly but not cultivated evenly through our education system. Additionally, access not provided uniformly by the private sector or our economic system. Thus, education and business were crucial to achieving stronger social mobility. This was an agenda about the community framework of our country – supporting human talent and connecting them to chances.

What Levelling Up Became

What did the social mobility agenda turn into under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Hanging baskets and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A government strategy was released a significant period after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies relabelled under the recently branded agenda.

As a result, a wider fairness strategy went unpursued, as well as all the change that it could have inspired – in funding, commerce, fiscal strategy, revenue and in community development. Additionally, in education, including a higher education sector that has become a scapegoat for elected officials – despite the fact that it remains the most powerful engine of life improvement for individuals from less privileged homes, personally, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the only engine of fair chances, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Aspiration is vital for our country to prosper. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are linked; that if people aim high, they can attain. For any government, being able to instil a sense of optimism about the tomorrow is crucial. Studies by the Institute for Policy Research at the university and others, recently released, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to improving education outcomes – led to youth in those neighborhoods being up to a significant margin more hopeful about their future than those in similar areas without these programmes in place. The data shows: just making an authentic start on equal chance initiatives can swiftly and beneficially change how people perceive their future.

Missed Opportunities

Oblivious to this, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in September 2022, the Conservative government terminated the programmes. Why would anyone in those regions vote for a party that did that? This specific initiative is a single instance of what might have become a revolutionary Conservative government agenda on levelling up, but that chance was completely wasted. Strategies such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. Conversely, as the Conservatives found out, reneging on commitments of equal opportunity is the costliest mistake any political party can make. The electorate penalized the leadership for its incompetence but, primarily, for its failed pledges on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

Currently the baton on life chances and fair access has been transferred to a new administration. The levelling up rhetoric has been discarded. The new government has its own political rhetoric of “removing obstacles to success”. The political group that is increasingly displacing the hapless incumbents, Reform UK, also has its own language – “reindustrialisation”. It’s a phrase to talk about new opportunities in communities like the one I grew up in, in my hometown. It claims that an former economic strength can reincarnate into an modern manufacturing sector.

To the electorate, it must feel like a déjà vu experience. Same issue, different language. But – as yet – no results.

What Must Change

If Labour and Reform UK want to avoid the similar destiny, both these parties should learn from the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but actual achievement of improved opportunities is much harder. The UK’s persistently low social mobility remains the key issue for our country, with youth unable to get a decent career start, those laboring in occupations with little to show after the living expenses are met, and people across the country without any actual expectation their offspring will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can mention fairer opportunities however much they like. However, which party has the organization that has the comprehensive policy agenda on equal opportunity? I see none. Whoever gets there first, prevails. Not only for their party, but, significantly, for a whole country that has urgently needs equality of opportunity so badly.