🔗 Share this article

As the beleaguered Conservative party gathers in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a clear direction remains open. These are tough times for a governing group that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

What Could Have Been

It could have been so different if concrete steps had been made on an policy focus that is important for people across the country: Social mobility. But the former leadership lacked the first clue on how to transform the trendy talk on levelling up into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it discussed what the concept truly represented.

I found it bizarre, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what levelling up signified when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about life chances. It was our core mission, and its definition is clear: social mobility is the method by which we realize equal access – not through reducing opportunity away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by expanding chances to those that don’t.

Fundamental Idea

The other key DfE phrase we used, “potential is equally shared throughout the nation, however access isn’t”, again was a purposeful phrase, embodying the dual components of a social mobility strategy. First, potential shared equally but not nurtured uniformly through our learning institutions. Furthermore, opportunities not spread evenly by businesses or our economic system. Thus, education and business were essential to achieving better life chances. This constituted an mission about the community framework of our country – supporting individual capabilities and connecting them to opportunities.

What Levelling Up Became

How did levelling up become under the Tory administration? A towns fund managed by the DLUHC. Hanging baskets and redeveloped traffic systems. A white paper was released almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies rebadged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the improvement that it could have inspired – in capital, commerce, fiscal strategy, tax and in place-making. Moreover, in schooling, including a higher education sector that has become a punchbag for leaders across parties – despite the fact that it remains the most powerful engine of upward movement for individuals from less privileged homes, like me, this country has had in recent decades. Perhaps the primary source of equal opportunity, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Hope is crucial for our country to succeed. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a realistic expectation that dedication and outcome are connected; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to create a sense of optimism about the years ahead 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 – place-based approaches to enhancing learning results – led to youth in those neighborhoods being up to nearly one-fifth more hopeful about their future than those in comparable communities without these schemes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an authentic start on fair opportunity strategies can quickly and positively change how people feel about their prospects.

Missed Opportunities

Unaware of these findings, and in the midst of its successor selection process, in that period, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. Why should any person in those areas vote for a party that made that decision? This specific initiative is a clear case of what could have been a revolutionary administration strategy on levelling up, but that possibility was totally misused. Methods such as this can create belief and drive. Conversely, as the Tories learned, breaking the promise of social mobility is the costliest mistake any political party can make. The public held accountable the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, primarily, for its broken promises on equal opportunity.

Today’s Political Reality

Now the baton on life chances and equality of opportunity has passed to a new administration. The levelling up rhetoric has been abandoned. The new government has its own public messaging of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The political group that is gradually replacing the struggling Conservative party, the challenger, also has its own message – “economic renewal”. It’s a phrase to talk about new opportunities in areas like the one I come from, in the region. It promises that an industrial past can revive into an modern manufacturing sector.

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

Lessons for the Future

Whether the government and opposition want to prevent the similar destiny, both these parties should take lessons from the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that fair chance language is simple terminology, but successful delivery of improved opportunities is significantly more difficult. The UK’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the primary challenge for our country, with youth unable to get a good job beginning, those laboring in occupations with few results after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any real hope their offspring will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Leaders can talk about equal chances however much they like. But where is the organization that has the thorough strategy on life chances? None appear to exist. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not only for their party, but, more importantly, for a complete society that has never needed equality of opportunity so urgently.