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While the beleaguered Tories meets in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its next steps. Doubt remains if a clear direction remains open. We are in tough times for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

The Missed Opportunity

The situation might have been vastly better if real advances had been made on an agenda that is important for people nationwide: Levelling up. Yet the former leadership did not possess the basic understanding on how to convert the trendy talk on social mobility into actual implementation. During the initial period after the general election, it argued over what the concept truly represented.

I found it bizarre, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what levelling up meant when we first spoke about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was language I created and used at the education ministry to talk about equal opportunity. It was our guiding principle, and its definition is clear: social mobility is the means by which we realize fair chances – not through reducing prospects away from those who possess it, but rather by extending chances to those that are without.

The Core Concept

Another crucial DfE phrase we used, “potential is equally shared across our country, but opportunity is not”, again was a purposeful phrase, embodying the dual components of a social mobility strategy. Initially, ability distributed uniformly but not cultivated evenly through our education system. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by the private sector or our economic system. As a result, education and business were crucial to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This was an priority about the social fabric of our country – supporting individual capabilities and linking them with prospects.

The Reality of Implementation

How did the social mobility agenda become under the previous government? A towns fund overseen from the the relevant ministry. Hanging baskets and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A government strategy was launched a significant period after the Prime Minister took office, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Therefore, a broader social mobility agenda went undeveloped, as well as all the improvement that it could have inspired – in funding, commerce, economic policy, taxation and in community development. Additionally, in schooling, including a university system that has become a scapegoat for leaders across parties – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for youth from modest backgrounds, personally, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the primary source of fair chances, operating at scale.

The Role of Ambition

Aspiration is crucial for our country to prosper. For hope to exist, there needs to be a credible sense that effort and reward are connected; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For any government, being able to instil a outlook of positivity about the tomorrow is crucial. Studies by the research body at Bath University and others, published last month, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I launched while in office – place-based approaches to boosting academic achievement – led to youth in those areas being up to nearly one-fifth more hopeful about their prospects than those in equivalent locations without these initiatives in place. The research confirms: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can swiftly and beneficially change how people feel about their prospects.

Missed Opportunities

Unaware of these findings, and in the throes of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in September 2022, the ruling party closed opportunity areas down. Why would anyone in those areas vote for a political group that made that decision? The targeted programme is a clear case of what could have been a transformative Tory policy platform on levelling up, but that possibility was totally misused. Methods such as this can generate optimism and ambition. In contrast, as the Conservatives learned, failing to deliver of fair chances is the most expensive error any leadership can make. Voters punished the administration for its failure but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on equal opportunity.

Present Circumstances

Now the mandate on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has been taken up by a Labour government. The old slogan has been cast off. The new government has its own policy language of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The party that is gradually replacing the failing incumbents, Reform UK, also has its own message – “economic renewal”. This expression to talk about fresh prospects in areas like the one I come from, in the region. It claims that an historical manufacturing base can reincarnate into an industrial future.

To the electorate, it must feel like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Same issue, new terminology. But – as yet – no results.

Lessons for the Future

If Labour and Reform UK want to escape the identical outcome, the respective organizations should learn from the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is significantly more difficult. The UK’s chronically poor social mobility remains the central problem for our country, with the next generation unable to get a decent career start, those laboring in full-time jobs with little to show after the rent has been paid, and citizens throughout the UK without any real hope their next generation will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Elected officials can discuss fairer opportunities however much they like. Yet where is the political group that has the comprehensive policy agenda on social mobility? None appear to exist. The first to achieve this, prevails. Not just for their party, but, more importantly, for a complete society that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so badly.