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While the beleaguered Conservative party convenes in its conference city for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its next steps. It’s not even clear if a road forward is available. We are in challenging circumstances for a political party that now has almost nothing, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

What Could Have Been

Things could have turned out so different if concrete steps had been made on an priority that is important for people nationwide: Social mobility. However the previous administration lacked the first clue on how to transform the trendy talk on social mobility into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it discussed what the phrase actually signified.

It seemed strange to me, because I had clearly defined for the Prime Minister what social mobility entailed when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. The expression was a concept I originated and used at the Department for Education to talk about equal opportunity. This became our guiding principle, and its purpose is straightforward: social mobility is the method by which we realize equality of opportunity – not by taking opportunity away from those who possess it, but rather by extending options to those that don’t.

Essential Principle

An additional vital DfE phrase we used, “potential is equally shared across our country, yet chances are not”, again was a deliberate expression, embodying the two halves of a equal opportunity plan. Initially, potential shared equally but not nurtured uniformly through our education system. Additionally, chances not distributed fairly by businesses or our economic system. As a result, schools and companies were crucial to achieving stronger social mobility. This was an mission about the community framework of our country – supporting human talent and linking them with chances.

What Levelling Up Became

How did levelling up evolve into under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes administered out of the DLUHC. Hanging baskets and redeveloped traffic systems. A white paper was published a significant period after the leadership change, which saw current strategies rebadged under the new levelling up banner.

Consequently, a wider fairness strategy went undeveloped, as well as all the improvement that it might have driven – in capital, business, economic policy, revenue and in local regeneration. Additionally, in learning, including a higher education sector that has become a target for politicians of all stripes – even though it remains the strongest driver of social mobility for individuals from less privileged homes, personally, this country has had throughout modern times. Perhaps the only engine of equal opportunity, working extensively.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is crucial for our country to thrive. To foster ambition, there needs to be a realistic expectation that effort and reward are linked; that if people aim high, they can succeed. For all administrations, being able to create a outlook of positivity about the tomorrow is crucial. Research by the research body at Bath University and others, published last month, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to enhancing learning results – led to youth in those areas being up to nearly one-fifth more positive about their prospects than those in comparable communities without these initiatives in place. The evidence is clear: just making an genuine beginning on pro-social mobility policy can rapidly and effectively change how people view their prospects.

Missed Opportunities

Oblivious to this, and in the throes of its successor selection process, in September 2022, the Conservative government terminated the programmes. What reason would someone in those areas vote for a political group that made that decision? The opportunity areas policy is a clear case of what might have become a revolutionary Conservative government agenda on social mobility, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Approaches such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. In contrast, as the ruling party discovered, failing to deliver of equal opportunity is the biggest blunder any political party can make. Voters held accountable the leadership for its incompetence but, perhaps most of all, for its failed pledges on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

Now the baton on life chances and equal chances has been taken up by a opposition party. The previous terminology has been abandoned. The current administration has its own policy language of “removing obstacles to success”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the hapless Conservative party, the challenger, also has its own message – “economic renewal”. The terminology to talk about additional chances in communities like the one I grew up in, in my hometown. It claims that an former economic strength can be reborn into an revitalized economy.

To the electorate, it must seem like a déjà vu experience. Similar challenge, new terminology. However, so far, no progress.

The Way Forward

Should the current and alternative parties want to prevent the similar destiny, each group should learn from the previous government’s errors on levelling up; that fair chance language is one thing, but effective implementation of more equal results is far more challenging. The UK’s chronically poor life chances remains the central problem for our country, with the next generation unable to get a decent career start, those putting in effort in full-time jobs with minimal progress after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any actual expectation their offspring will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Leaders can mention equal chances repeatedly. Yet where is the organization that has the thorough strategy on equal opportunity? I observe no such party. Whoever gets there first, succeeds. Not just for their party, but, more importantly, for a complete society that has never needed equal access so desperately.