🔗 Share this article

As the struggling Conservative party meets in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has plenty to consider regarding its future direction. There is uncertainty if a viable path remains open. We are in difficult days for a political party that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to the electorate.

The Missed Opportunity

The situation might have been so different if concrete steps had been made on an agenda that is important for people across the country: Levelling up. However the previous administration did not possess the slightest idea on how to convert the trendy talk on levelling up into policy reality. During the initial period after the general election, it debated what the concept actually signified.

It seemed strange to me, because I’d already told Johnson what social mobility meant when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was language I created and used at the DfE to talk about equal opportunity. It served as our departmental mantra, and its definition is clear: levelling up is the method by which we achieve fair chances – not by taking chances away from those who already have it, but rather by expanding options to those that lack them.

The Core Concept

An additional vital DfE phrase we used, “talent is spread evenly across our country, but opportunity is not”, served as a purposeful phrase, reflecting the two halves of a equal opportunity plan. First, talent spread evenly but not nurtured uniformly through our schools and colleges. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by businesses or our economy. As a result, schools and companies were key to achieving better life chances. This was an mission about the community framework of our country – fostering human talent and connecting them to prospects.

The Actual Outcome

How did the social mobility agenda turn into under the previous government? Local investment schemes administered out of the DLUHC. Decorative floral displays and redeveloped traffic systems. A white paper was published a significant period after Johnson became leader, which saw ongoing initiatives rebadged under the recently branded agenda.

Therefore, a broader social mobility agenda went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it might have driven – in capital, enterprise, fiscal strategy, revenue and in community development. And, of course, in schooling, including a tertiary education that has become a punchbag for elected officials – despite the fact that it remains the most powerful engine of upward movement for individuals from less privileged homes, including myself, this country has had in recent decades. Perhaps the sole mechanism of equal opportunity, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Ambition is crucial for our country to prosper. For hope to exist, there needs to be a realistic expectation that hard work and results are related; that if people aspire, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to foster a outlook of positivity about the future is crucial. Research by the academic institution at the academic establishment and others, recently released, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I established during my tenure – place-based approaches to enhancing learning results – led to students in those areas being up to nearly one-fifth more optimistic about their prospects than those in equivalent locations 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 prospects.

Missed Opportunities

Unaware of these findings, and in the middle of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. Why should any person in those areas vote for a party that made that decision? This specific initiative is a clear case of what had the potential to be a transformative Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that chance was hopelessly squandered. Strategies such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. On the other hand, as the ruling party discovered, failing to deliver of equal opportunity is the most expensive error any government can make. The electorate penalized the administration for its failure but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

Now the responsibility on life chances and fair access has been taken up by a new administration. The previous terminology has been abandoned. Labour has its own public messaging of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The party that is increasingly displacing the hapless incumbents, the alternative party, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. This expression to talk about fresh prospects in regions like the one I come from, in my hometown. It suggests that an former economic strength can revive into an industrial future.

To the electorate, it must seem like a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, alternative phrasing. Yet, currently, little improvement.

What Must Change

Whether the government and opposition want to avoid the identical outcome, each group should learn from the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but effective implementation of more equal results is much harder. Our nation’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the central problem for our country, with youth unable to get a decent career start, those laboring in full-time jobs with minimal progress after the rent has been paid, and individuals nationwide without any real hope their offspring will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can mention fairer opportunities however much they like. But where is the organization that has the comprehensive policy agenda on equal opportunity? None appear to exist. Whoever gets there first, wins. Not just for themselves, but, significantly, for a complete society that has never needed equality of opportunity so urgently.