🔗 Share this article

As the existentially challenged Tories convenes in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has much to ponder regarding its future direction. Doubt remains if a viable path exists at all. We are in difficult days for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

The Missed Opportunity

It could have been so different if concrete steps had been made on an priority that is important for people nationwide: Social mobility. However Boris Johnson’s government hadn’t got the basic understanding on how to transform the trendy talk on social mobility into policy reality. During the initial period after the 2019 election, it argued over what the concept truly represented.

It seemed strange to me, because I had previously explained to Johnson what levelling up signified when we first spoke about it during the contest for party leader. This terminology was a concept I originated and used at the education ministry to talk about life chances. It served as our core mission, and its definition is clear: levelling up is the means by which we realize fair chances – not by taking opportunity away from those who possess it, but rather by providing chances to those that lack them.

The Core Concept

The other key DfE phrase we used, “potential is equally shared around the UK, however access isn’t”, again was a deliberate expression, embodying the two halves of a fairness agenda. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not developed consistently through our learning institutions. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by the private sector or our market. Thus, education and business were key to achieving better life chances. This represented an priority about the societal structure of our country – investing in people’s potential and connecting them to opportunities.

The Actual Outcome

How did the social mobility agenda turn into under the previous government? A towns fund managed by the the relevant ministry. Decorative floral displays and redeveloped traffic systems. An official policy document was published a significant period after the Prime Minister took office, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the new levelling up banner.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went undeveloped, as well as all the reform that it could have inspired – in capital, business, fiscal strategy, taxation and in local regeneration. Moreover, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a punchbag for elected officials – although it remains the most powerful engine of life improvement for young working-class people, like me, this country has had throughout modern times. Maybe the primary source of social mobility, functioning widely.

Why Hope Matters

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 aspire, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to create a sense of optimism about the future is important. Studies by the Institute for Policy Research at Bath University and others, newly available, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to enhancing learning results – led to youth in those areas being up to 18 percentage points more hopeful about their future than those in comparable communities without these schemes in place. The research confirms: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can swiftly and beneficially change how people perceive their destiny.

Missed Opportunities

Ignoring this evidence, and in the throes of its new leader election, in September 2022, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. Why would anyone in those regions vote for a organization that made that decision? This specific initiative is a clear case of what had the potential to be a revolutionary administration strategy on social mobility, but that opportunity was totally misused. Strategies such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. On the other hand, as the Conservatives learned, breaking the promise of equal opportunity is the most expensive error any government can make. The public punished the leadership for its incompetence but, primarily, for its failed pledges on equal opportunity.

Today’s Political Reality

Currently the responsibility on social mobility and fair access has been transferred to a Labour government. The previous terminology has been abandoned. Labour has its own political rhetoric of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The party that is steadily supplanting the struggling incumbents, the alternative party, also has its own terminology – “industrial revival”. The terminology to talk about new opportunities in regions like the one I was raised in, in the region. It suggests that an industrial past can reincarnate into an modern manufacturing sector.

To the electorate, it must seem like a repetitive cycle. Similar challenge, alternative phrasing. But – as yet – no results.

What Must Change

Should the current and alternative parties want to avoid the similar destiny, the respective organizations should understand the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is simple terminology, but actual achievement of more equal results is much harder. Our nation’s chronically poor equal opportunity remains the primary challenge for our country, with the next generation unable to get a good job beginning, those putting in effort in full-time jobs with little to show after the housing costs are covered, and citizens throughout the UK without any actual expectation their offspring will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Elected officials can discuss fairer opportunities however much they like. But where is the party that has the thorough strategy on equal opportunity? I observe no such party. Whichever party succeeds initially, wins. Not only for their organization, but, crucially, for a whole country that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so badly.