🔗 Share this article

While the struggling Tories convenes in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a road forward remains open. We are in difficult days for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

What Could Have Been

The situation might have been vastly better if tangible progress had been made on an policy focus that resonates with people throughout the UK: Levelling up. However the former leadership lacked the first clue on how to turn his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into actual implementation. For the two years after the general election, it argued over what the concept even meant.

It seemed strange to me, because I had previously explained to Johnson what levelling up meant when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. This terminology was a concept I originated and used at the education ministry to talk about social mobility. It was our guiding principle, and its definition is straightforward: levelling up is the approach by which we realize equal access – not by taking opportunity away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by expanding options to those that lack them.

The Core Concept

Another crucial ministry expression we used, “talent is spread evenly throughout the nation, however access isn’t”, served as a deliberate expression, representing the two halves of a fairness agenda. First, ability distributed uniformly but not cultivated evenly through our learning institutions. Additionally, opportunities not spread evenly by the private sector or our economy. Thus, learning and employment were key to achieving stronger social mobility. This constituted an priority about the societal structure of our country – investing in individual capabilities and providing access to prospects.

The Actual Outcome

What did levelling up become under the Tory administration? Regional development money overseen from the the relevant ministry. Hanging baskets and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A white paper was launched a significant period after Johnson became leader, which saw ongoing initiatives repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

Therefore, a wider fairness strategy went undeveloped, as well as all the reform that it may have generated – in investment, business, economic policy, tax and in place-making. And, of course, in schooling, including a higher education sector that has become a target for politicians of all stripes – even though it remains the primary vehicle of social mobility for individuals from less privileged homes, including myself, this country has had throughout modern times. Possibly the primary source of equal opportunity, working extensively.

Why Hope Matters

Aspiration is crucial for our country to prosper. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are connected; that if people dream big, they can achieve. For all administrations, 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, published last month, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to improving education outcomes – led to students 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 pro-social mobility policy can swiftly and beneficially change how people perceive their future.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the throes of its successor selection process, in that period, the Conservative government terminated the programmes. Why should any person in those communities vote for a political group that took that action? The opportunity areas policy is a clear case of what could have been a revolutionary Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Approaches such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. On the other hand, as the Conservatives discovered, breaking the promise of social mobility is the biggest blunder any government can make. Voters punished the administration for its incompetence but, above all, for its broken promises on equal opportunity.

Today’s Political Reality

Currently the responsibility on equal opportunity and fair access has been taken up by a new administration. The previous terminology has been discarded. The new government has its own political rhetoric of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The party that is steadily supplanting the failing Conservative party, the alternative party, also has its own language – “industrial revival”. The terminology to talk about new opportunities in communities like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It promises that an former economic strength can revive into an revitalized economy.

To the electorate, it must feel like a repetitive cycle. Same issue, new terminology. Yet, currently, little improvement.

What Must Change

If Labour and Reform UK want to avoid the identical outcome, the respective organizations should learn from the previous government’s errors on social mobility; that fair chance language is simple terminology, but successful delivery of more equal results is much harder. Britain’s persistently low life chances remains the key issue for our country, with youth unable to get a good job beginning, those working hard in employment with little to show after the housing costs are covered, and individuals nationwide without any real hope their children will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Leaders can talk about improved access however much they like. But where is the party that has the complete plan on social mobility? I observe no such party. Whichever party succeeds initially, wins. Not only for themselves, but, significantly, for a entire nation that has urgently needs equal access so badly.