🔗 Share this article

While the struggling Tories gathers in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its path forward. There is uncertainty if a road forward exists at all. These are difficult days for a governing group that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to voters.

What Could Have Been

It could have been so different if tangible progress had been made on an agenda that matters to people nationwide: Social mobility. Yet the former leadership hadn’t got the slightest idea on how to transform the popular slogan on levelling up into policy reality. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it discussed what the term even meant.

It seemed strange to me, because I’d already told Johnson what levelling up entailed when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about life chances. It served as our guiding principle, and its definition is unambiguous: levelling up is the method by which we realize equality of opportunity – not through reducing opportunity away from those who possess it, but rather by extending chances to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial education department term we used, “potential is equally shared across our country, yet chances are not”, served as a intentional wording, representing the two halves of a social mobility strategy. Initially, ability distributed uniformly but not cultivated evenly through our schools and colleges. Additionally, access not provided uniformly by businesses or our economy. As a result, education and business were key to achieving better life chances. This was an priority about the community framework of our country – investing in human talent and linking them with opportunities.

The Actual Outcome

What did levelling up evolve into under the Tory administration? Regional development money managed by the DLUHC. Decorative floral displays and rearranged intersections. A white paper was published almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies repackaged under the new levelling up banner.

Therefore, a wider fairness strategy went undeveloped, as well as all the change that it could have inspired – in investment, business, economic policy, taxation and in local regeneration. And, of course, in education, including a higher education sector that has become a target for politicians of all stripes – although it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for youth from modest backgrounds, like me, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the only engine of equal opportunity, working extensively.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is essential for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are connected; that if people dream big, they can succeed. For all administrations, being able to foster a feeling of hope about the tomorrow is critical. Research by the research body at Bath University and others, published last month, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I launched while in office – community-focused methods to enhancing learning results – led to youth in those communities being up to nearly one-fifth more hopeful about their future than those in similar areas without these schemes in place. The research confirms: just making an authentic start on equal chance initiatives can swiftly and beneficially change how people view their future.

Missed Opportunities

Ignoring this evidence, and in the throes of its new leader election, in September 2022, the Tory administration closed opportunity areas down. Why would anyone in those communities vote for a party that did that? This specific initiative is one example of what could have been a revolutionary Conservative government agenda on levelling up, but that opportunity was hopelessly squandered. Methods such as this can create belief and drive. In contrast, as the Conservatives discovered, reneging on commitments of fair chances is the costliest mistake any leadership can make. The electorate penalized the government for its failure but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on equal opportunity.

Present Circumstances

Currently the mandate on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a Labour government. The levelling up rhetoric has been cast off. The new government has its own policy language of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the hapless Conservative party, Reform UK, also has its own language – “reindustrialisation”. It’s a phrase to talk about new opportunities in communities like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It suggests that an historical manufacturing base can be reborn into an industrial future.

For the public, it must appear as a Groundhog Day-style loop. Identical problem, new terminology. However, so far, no progress.

Lessons for the Future

Whether the government and opposition want to escape the similar destiny, both these parties should take lessons from the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is simple terminology, but successful delivery of improved opportunities is far more challenging. The UK’s endemically weak life chances remains the primary challenge for our country, with youth unable to get a proper professional launch, those putting in effort in employment with little to show after the housing costs are covered, and individuals nationwide without any genuine belief their offspring will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Politicians can talk about equal chances repeatedly. Yet where is the political group that has the thorough strategy on equal opportunity? I see none. The first to achieve this, wins. Not only for their party, but, more importantly, for a entire nation that has never needed fair chances so desperately.