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While the struggling Tories meets in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a road forward is available. We are in tough times for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

The Missed Opportunity

It could have been vastly better if tangible progress had been made on an priority that resonates with people throughout the UK: Levelling up. But Boris Johnson’s government did not possess the first clue on how to convert his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into concrete action. Over twenty-four months after the 2019 election, it debated what the concept truly represented.

It seemed strange to me, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what levelling up entailed when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was a term I developed and used at the Department for Education to talk about social mobility. It was our core mission, and its meaning is clear: levelling up is the method by which we attain fair chances – not through reducing chances away from those who already have it, but rather by providing options to those that are without.

Fundamental Idea

An additional vital education department term we used, “potential is equally shared across our country, however access isn’t”, served as a intentional wording, embodying the two parts of a fairness agenda. First, potential shared equally but not cultivated evenly through our education system. Furthermore, opportunities not spread evenly by businesses or our market. As a result, education and business were crucial to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This constituted an priority about the social fabric of our country – investing in individual capabilities and providing access to prospects.

What Levelling Up Became

What did the social mobility agenda evolve into under the previous government? Regional development money overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Decorative floral displays and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. An official policy document was launched almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw ongoing initiatives relabelled under the new levelling up banner.

Therefore, a broader social mobility agenda went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it might have driven – in funding, business, fiscal strategy, tax and in place-making. Moreover, in schooling, including a tertiary education that has become a punchbag for leaders across parties – although it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for youth from modest backgrounds, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Possibly the primary source of fair chances, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Ambition is essential for our country to succeed. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a believable feeling that hard work and results are linked; that if people aim high, they can attain. For all administrations, being able to foster a sense of optimism about the years ahead is important. Studies by the research body at the university and others, newly available, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to boosting academic achievement – led to young people in those areas being up to nearly one-fifth more optimistic about their life ahead than those in equivalent locations without these programmes in place. The evidence is clear: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can quickly and positively change how people view their prospects.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government ended the initiatives. Why would anyone in those areas vote for a party that made that decision? The targeted programme is one example of what might have become a transformative Conservative government agenda on levelling up, but that opportunity was totally misused. Methods such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. In contrast, as the ruling party discovered, failing to deliver of fair chances is the costliest mistake any political party can make. The public punished the government for its incompetence but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

Currently the baton on life chances and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a Labour government. The old slogan has been cast off. The new government has its own public messaging of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The organization that is increasingly displacing the failing Tories, Reform UK, also has its own language – “industrial revival”. This expression to talk about new opportunities in areas like the one I grew up in, in my hometown. It suggests that an historical manufacturing base can reincarnate into an industrial future.

For voters, it must seem like a repetitive cycle. Same issue, different language. However, so far, no progress.

The Way Forward

Should the current and alternative parties want to avoid the same fate, each group should take lessons from the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is easy to say, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is much harder. Our nation’s persistently low life chances remains the key issue for our country, with youth unable to get a proper professional launch, those working hard in full-time jobs with minimal progress after the living expenses are met, and people across the country without any genuine belief their offspring will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Elected officials can mention fairer opportunities however much they like. Yet where is the party that has the comprehensive policy agenda on social mobility? None appear to exist. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not only for their organization, but, significantly, for a entire nation that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so badly.