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While the existentially challenged Tories meets in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its future direction. Doubt remains if a road forward remains open. We are in tough times for a governing group that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

The Missed Opportunity

The situation might have been so different if tangible progress had been made on an policy focus that resonates with people nationwide: Levelling up. However the previous administration did not possess the first clue on how to transform his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into concrete action. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it argued over what the concept even meant.

I found it bizarre, because I had previously explained to Johnson what social mobility signified when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. This became our core mission, and its definition is straightforward: levelling up is the method by which we attain equality of opportunity – not by taking prospects away from those who already have it, but rather by expanding chances to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

Another crucial ministry expression we used, “potential is equally shared throughout the nation, but opportunity is not”, served as a purposeful phrase, embodying the dual components of a social mobility strategy. Initially, talent spread evenly but not cultivated evenly through our education system. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our economy. Thus, schools and companies were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This constituted an priority about the societal structure of our country – investing in people’s potential and linking them with opportunities.

The Actual Outcome

What did levelling up evolve into under the Tory administration? Regional development money administered out of the the relevant ministry. Decorative floral displays and redeveloped traffic systems. A government strategy was released nearly three years after the Prime Minister took office, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went ignored, as well as all the change that it may have generated – in funding, commerce, financial planning, taxation and in place-making. Moreover, in learning, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for leaders across parties – even though it remains the primary vehicle of upward movement for individuals from less privileged homes, including myself, this country has had throughout modern times. Perhaps the sole mechanism of fair chances, functioning widely.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is essential for our country to succeed. For hope to exist, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are related; that if people dream big, they can attain. For all administrations, being able to foster a feeling of hope about the future is important. Studies by the Institute for Policy Research at Bath University and others, recently released, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to improving education outcomes – led to youth in those areas being up to 18 percentage points more optimistic about their prospects than those in comparable communities without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can rapidly and effectively change how people perceive their prospects.

Lost Potential

Unaware of these findings, and in the throes of its new leader election, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. Why should any person in those communities vote for a political group that did that? The opportunity areas policy is a single instance of what could have been a revolutionary Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that possibility was totally misused. Approaches such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. Conversely, as the Conservatives discovered, reneging on commitments of social mobility is the most expensive error any leadership can make. The public held accountable the leadership for its incompetence but, above all, for its unfulfilled commitments on levelling up.

Present Circumstances

At present the baton on life chances and equality of opportunity has been taken up by a opposition party. The levelling up rhetoric has been abandoned. The current administration has its own public messaging of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The party that is gradually replacing the failing Tories, the alternative party, also has its own terminology – “economic renewal”. This expression to talk about new opportunities in areas like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It suggests that an industrial past can revive into an revitalized economy.

To the electorate, it must seem like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Similar challenge, alternative phrasing. Yet, currently, little improvement.

Lessons for the Future

Whether the government and opposition want to avoid the same fate, each group should take lessons from the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is much harder. The UK’s chronically poor life chances remains the central problem for our country, with youth unable to get a decent career start, those working hard in employment with minimal progress after the rent has been paid, and citizens throughout the UK without any real hope their next generation will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Leaders can talk about improved access repeatedly. However, which party has the organization that has the comprehensive policy agenda on life chances? None appear to exist. Whichever party succeeds initially, succeeds. Not only for their party, but, crucially, for a whole country that has urgently needs equality of opportunity so urgently.