🔗 Share this article

As the existentially challenged Conservative party gathers in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has much to ponder regarding its future direction. It’s not even clear if a road forward remains open. We are in difficult days for a political party that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been vastly better if concrete steps had been made on an agenda that resonates with people across the country: Equal opportunity. However the former leadership did not possess the basic understanding on how to transform the trendy talk on levelling up into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it argued over what the phrase truly represented.

I found it bizarre, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up signified when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. The expression was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. This became our core mission, and its purpose is unambiguous: social mobility is the method by which we achieve fair chances – not by taking opportunity away from those who possess it, but rather by extending opportunities to those that don’t.

The Core Concept

An additional vital DfE phrase we used, “talent is spread evenly around the UK, however access isn’t”, again was a intentional wording, embodying the two halves of a equal opportunity plan. First, talent spread evenly but not cultivated evenly through our learning institutions. Additionally, access not provided uniformly by businesses or our economic system. As a result, learning and employment were crucial to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This represented an priority about the social fabric of our country – supporting people’s potential and linking them with opportunities.

The Reality of Implementation

What did levelling up turn into under the previous government? Regional development money managed by the the relevant ministry. Street beautification and rearranged intersections. A white paper was launched a significant period after the leadership change, which saw existing policy approaches repackaged under the new levelling up banner.

Therefore, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went undeveloped, as well as all the improvement that it could have inspired – in investment, business, economic policy, tax and in place-making. And, of course, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a target for politicians of all stripes – even though it remains the most powerful engine of life improvement for youth from modest backgrounds, like me, this country has had in recent decades. Perhaps the only engine of social mobility, functioning widely.

The Importance of Aspiration

Aspiration is vital for our country to prosper. To foster ambition, there needs to be a credible sense that hard work and results are related; that if people aspire, they can succeed. For any government, being able to instil a feeling of hope about the tomorrow is important. Analysis by the research body at the academic establishment and others, published last month, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I introduced as education secretary – community-focused methods to improving education outcomes – led to students in those communities being up to 18 percentage points more positive about their future than those in equivalent locations without these programmes in place. The research confirms: just making an sincere effort on equal chance initiatives can quickly and positively change how people feel about their destiny.

Missed Opportunities

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in September 2022, the Tory administration terminated the programmes. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a political group that made that decision? The targeted programme is one example of what might have become a transformative Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that possibility was hopelessly squandered. Approaches such as this can create belief and drive. Conversely, as the ruling party learned, failing to deliver of equal opportunity is the most expensive error any government can make. Voters held accountable the government for its failure but, above all, for its unfulfilled commitments on levelling up.

Today’s Political Reality

Now the mandate on life chances and fair access has passed to a opposition party. The previous terminology has been discarded. Labour has its own public messaging of “removing obstacles to success”. The party that is steadily supplanting the failing Conservative party, the alternative party, also has its own message – “industrial revival”. This expression to talk about fresh prospects in communities like the one I come from, in South Yorkshire. It promises that an industrial past can be reborn into an industrial future.

For voters, it must appear as a Groundhog Day-style loop. Same issue, new terminology. Yet, currently, little improvement.

What Must Change

Whether the government and opposition want to avoid the identical outcome, each group should understand the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is easy to say, but successful delivery of improved opportunities is much harder. Britain’s endemically weak social mobility remains the primary challenge for our country, with the next generation unable to get a decent career start, those putting in effort in employment with few results after the housing costs are covered, and individuals nationwide without any genuine belief their children will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Leaders can talk about fairer opportunities however much they like. But where is the political group that has the thorough strategy on life chances? I observe no such party. The first to achieve this, succeeds. Not only for themselves, but, crucially, for a complete society that has desperately requires equal access so urgently.