As the original author championed levelling up as the essential to Tory electoral victory – but the former Prime Minister neglected the agenda. See the current state.

While the existentially challenged Tories meets in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has much to ponder regarding its next steps. There is uncertainty if a clear direction exists at all. We are in challenging circumstances for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

The Missed Opportunity

The situation might have been markedly improved if tangible progress had been made on an priority that resonates with people nationwide: Levelling up. Yet the previous administration lacked the slightest idea on how to transform his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into policy reality. During the initial period after the 2019 election, it argued over what the concept truly represented.

I found it bizarre, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what social mobility signified 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 life chances. It was our core mission, and its meaning is clear: levelling up is the approach by which we attain fair chances – without removing opportunity away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by expanding chances to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

The other key ministry expression we used, “talent is spread evenly around the UK, yet chances are not”, again was a deliberate expression, reflecting the two parts of a fairness agenda. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not nurtured uniformly through our education system. Furthermore, chances not distributed fairly by the private sector or our market. As a result, learning and employment were essential to achieving stronger social mobility. This was an agenda about the social fabric of our country – investing in people’s potential and connecting them to prospects.

The Actual Outcome

How did levelling up evolve into under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes administered out of the DLUHC. Hanging baskets and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A government strategy was published almost thirty-six months after the Prime Minister took office, which saw current strategies rebadged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went ignored, as well as all the improvement that it might have driven – in investment, enterprise, fiscal strategy, taxation and in place-making. Additionally, in education, including a higher education sector that has become a punchbag for elected officials – even though it remains the strongest driver of upward movement for young working-class people, like me, this country has had in recent decades. Possibly the sole mechanism of fair chances, working extensively.

The Importance of Aspiration

Aspiration is vital for our country to thrive. To foster ambition, there needs to be a believable feeling that dedication and outcome are related; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to instil a sense of optimism about the future is important. Analysis by the research body at Bath University and others, recently released, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I established during my tenure – community-focused methods to enhancing learning results – led to youth in those communities being up to nearly one-fifth more positive about their future than those in comparable communities without these programmes in place. The data shows: just making an authentic start on equal chance initiatives 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 ended the initiatives. Why should any person in those regions vote for a organization that did that? The targeted programme is a single instance of what might have become a transformative administration strategy on social mobility, but that possibility was totally misused. Approaches such as this can generate optimism and ambition. On the other hand, as the ruling party discovered, reneging on commitments of fair chances is the most expensive error any government can make. Voters held accountable the administration for its incompetence but, primarily, for its failed pledges on equal opportunity.

The Current Landscape

Currently the responsibility on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has been taken up by a Labour government. The old slogan has been discarded. The new government has its own public messaging of “eliminating hurdles to advancement”. The party that is steadily supplanting the struggling incumbents, the alternative party, 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 promises that an historical manufacturing base can reincarnate into an revitalized economy.

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

What Must Change

Should the current and alternative parties want to avoid the same fate, each group should learn from the Tories’ mistakes on levelling up; that equal opportunity talk is one thing, but effective implementation of improved opportunities is significantly more difficult. Britain’s endemically weak equal opportunity remains the key issue for our country, with young people unable to get a good job beginning, those putting in effort in employment with little to show after the housing costs are covered, and people across the country without any real hope their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can discuss equal chances however much they like. But where is the party that has the comprehensive policy agenda on social mobility? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not only for their organization, but, more importantly, for a whole country that has never needed equality of opportunity so desperately.