As the original author advocated for equal opportunity as the key to Tory electoral victory – but the former Prime Minister failed to deliver. See the current state.

As the beleaguered Tories meets in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has plenty to consider regarding its future direction. Doubt remains if a clear direction is available. We are in challenging circumstances for a governing group that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

What Could Have Been

It could have been markedly improved if tangible progress had been made on an agenda that resonates with people across the country: Social mobility. But Boris Johnson’s government did not possess the slightest idea on how to turn the popular slogan on levelling up into policy reality. For the two years after the 2019 election, it discussed what the phrase actually signified.

I found it bizarre, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what levelling up meant when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was a concept I originated and used at the Department for Education to talk about life chances. It was our core mission, and its definition is clear: levelling up is the approach by which we realize equality of opportunity – without removing prospects away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by expanding opportunities to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

The other key DfE phrase we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, yet chances are not”, represented another a intentional wording, embodying the two halves of a social mobility strategy. Initially, talent spread evenly but not nurtured uniformly through our education system. Additionally, access not provided uniformly by employers or our economic system. Therefore, learning and employment were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This constituted an agenda about the social fabric of our country – fostering human talent and connecting them to opportunities.

The Reality of Implementation

What did the social mobility agenda evolve into under the Tory administration? A towns fund overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Decorative floral displays and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A white paper was launched nearly three years after the leadership change, which saw ongoing initiatives rebadged under the new levelling up banner.

As a result, a wider fairness strategy went unpursued, as well as all the reform that it might have driven – in capital, enterprise, fiscal strategy, revenue and in local regeneration. Moreover, in schooling, including a university system that has become a scapegoat for politicians of all stripes – despite the fact that it remains the primary vehicle of life improvement for youth from modest backgrounds, personally, this country has had throughout modern times. Maybe the sole mechanism of social mobility, working extensively.

The Role of Ambition

Aspiration is crucial for our country to thrive. To foster ambition, there needs to be a realistic expectation that dedication and outcome are related; that if people aim high, they can achieve. For all administrations, being able to foster a outlook of positivity about the years ahead is important. Studies by the Institute for Policy Research at the academic establishment and others, published last month, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to boosting academic achievement – led to students in those communities being up to 18 percentage points more hopeful about their life ahead than those in comparable communities without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an sincere effort on equal chance initiatives can rapidly and effectively change how people feel about their future.

Missed Opportunities

Oblivious to this, and in the throes of its new leader election, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those areas vote for a political group that took that action? The targeted programme is a clear case of what could have been a game-changing Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that possibility was totally misused. Approaches such as this can generate optimism and ambition. Conversely, as the ruling party found out, reneging on commitments of fair chances is the biggest blunder any government can make. The electorate punished the government for its failure but, above all, for its broken promises on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

At present the responsibility on equal opportunity and fair access has passed to a opposition party. The old slogan has been discarded. Labour has its own policy language of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the failing Conservative party, the alternative party, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. This expression to talk about fresh prospects in areas like the one I grew up in, in my hometown. It claims that an industrial past can reincarnate into an modern manufacturing sector.

To the electorate, it must appear as a déjà vu experience. Identical problem, different language. But – as yet – no results.

Lessons for the Future

If Labour and Reform UK want to avoid the same fate, each group should take lessons from the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but effective implementation of fairer outcomes is significantly more difficult. The UK’s chronically poor social mobility remains the central problem for our country, with youth unable to get a good job beginning, those putting in effort in employment with little to show after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any real hope their offspring will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Politicians can mention fairer opportunities however much they like. But where is the party that has the thorough strategy on life chances? I see none. Whoever gets there first, wins. Not just for themselves, but, more importantly, for a whole country that has desperately requires equal access so badly.