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While the beleaguered Tories gathers in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its path forward. It’s not even clear if a clear direction exists at all. We are in challenging circumstances for a political party that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the electorate.

The Missed Opportunity

It could have been markedly improved if concrete steps had been made on an agenda that resonates with people across the country: Social mobility. However the previous administration hadn’t got the slightest idea on how to convert his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into actual implementation. During the initial period after the 2019 election, it argued over what the phrase actually signified.

I was perplexed, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what social mobility signified when we originally talked about it during the contest for party leader. This terminology was a term I developed and used at the DfE to talk about life chances. It served as our guiding principle, and its meaning is straightforward: social mobility is the method by which we achieve equality of opportunity – without removing chances away from those who possess it, but rather by providing chances to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

Another crucial ministry expression we used, “potential is equally shared across our country, however access isn’t”, again was a intentional wording, reflecting the dual components of a fairness agenda. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not cultivated evenly through our schools and colleges. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our market. Thus, schools and companies were essential to achieving stronger social mobility. This represented an agenda about the social fabric of our country – fostering people’s potential and linking them with chances.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up become under Johnson’s Conservatives? Regional development money administered out of the DLUHC. Decorative floral displays and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A white paper was published a significant period after the leadership change, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the recently branded agenda.

As a result, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went undeveloped, as well as all the change that it may have generated – in funding, enterprise, financial planning, taxation and in local regeneration. Moreover, in education, including a higher education sector that has become a punchbag for elected officials – although it remains the most powerful engine of upward movement for youth from modest backgrounds, personally, 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. To foster ambition, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are related; that if people dream big, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to create a feeling of hope about the future is critical. Studies by the research body at the academic establishment and others, published last month, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I introduced as education secretary – locally targeted strategies to boosting academic achievement – led to students in those areas being up to 18 percentage points more positive about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations without these initiatives in place. The data shows: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can swiftly and beneficially change how people feel about their destiny.

Lost Potential

Unaware of these findings, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in autumn 2022, the ruling party terminated the programmes. Why would anyone in those regions vote for a party that did that? This specific initiative is one example of what might have become a game-changing administration strategy on levelling up, but that possibility was hopelessly squandered. Approaches such as this can create belief and drive. Conversely, as the Conservatives discovered, reneging on commitments of fair chances is the most expensive error any government can make. The public punished the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on social mobility.

Present Circumstances

At present the responsibility on life chances and equal chances has been transferred to a new administration. The levelling up rhetoric has been discarded. The current administration has its own political rhetoric of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the struggling incumbents, the alternative party, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. It’s a phrase to talk about new opportunities in communities like the one I was raised in, in my hometown. It claims that an historical manufacturing base can revive into an revitalized economy.

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

The Way Forward

Whether the government and opposition want to prevent the same fate, each group should understand the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but effective implementation of improved opportunities is much harder. The UK’s persistently low equal opportunity remains the key issue for our country, with young people unable to get a proper professional launch, those working hard in employment with minimal progress after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any actual expectation their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Elected officials can talk about equal chances repeatedly. But where is the political group that has the comprehensive policy agenda on life chances? I see none. Whoever gets there first, wins. Not just for themselves, but, more importantly, for a complete society that has never needed equality of opportunity so desperately.