I championed equal opportunity as the critical to Tory electoral victory – but the former Prime Minister neglected the agenda. Observe the consequences.

As the beleaguered Tories meets in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has plenty to consider regarding its future direction. There is uncertainty if a clear direction remains open. We are in difficult days for a governing group that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

The Missed Opportunity

The situation might have been vastly better if concrete steps had been made on an agenda that matters to people across the country: Equal opportunity. Yet the former leadership lacked the first clue on how to transform his zeitgeisty rhetoric on levelling up into concrete action. During the initial period after the general election, it argued over what the concept even meant.

I was perplexed, because I had previously explained to the Prime Minister what social mobility signified when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was language I created and used at the DfE to talk about social mobility. This became our departmental mantra, and its meaning is unambiguous: social mobility is the method by which we attain equal access – without removing chances away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by extending chances to those that lack them.

The Core Concept

The other key education department term we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, yet chances are not”, served as a purposeful phrase, reflecting the dual components of a fairness agenda. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not developed consistently through our schools and colleges. Furthermore, access not provided uniformly by employers or our economy. Therefore, schools and companies were crucial to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This constituted an priority about the community framework of our country – investing in people’s potential and linking them with chances.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up evolve into under Johnson’s Conservatives? A towns fund overseen from the DLUHC. Decorative floral displays and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. A government strategy was published a significant period after Johnson became leader, which saw current strategies repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

Therefore, a broader social mobility agenda went undeveloped, as well as all the change that it might have driven – in funding, enterprise, economic policy, tax and in local regeneration. Moreover, in learning, including a tertiary education that has become a punchbag for politicians of all stripes – although it remains the primary vehicle of life improvement for youth from modest backgrounds, personally, this country has had throughout modern times. Possibly the only engine of social mobility, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Ambition is crucial for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a realistic expectation that hard work and results are linked; that if people aim high, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to foster a outlook of positivity about the future is important. Analysis by the research body at the university and others, published last month, showed that the ministry’s focus zones I introduced as education secretary – community-focused methods to boosting academic achievement – led to young people in those areas being up to nearly one-fifth more optimistic about their prospects than those in similar areas without these schemes in place. The research confirms: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can swiftly and beneficially change how people perceive their future.

Lost Potential

Oblivious to this, and in the midst of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in that period, the Tory administration terminated the programmes. Why should any person in those regions vote for a political group that took that action? The targeted programme is a single instance of what could have been a game-changing Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that chance was completely wasted. Approaches such as this can create belief and drive. On the other hand, as the Conservatives learned, reneging on commitments of equal opportunity is the costliest mistake any government can make. The public penalized the leadership for its failure but, perhaps most of all, for its unfulfilled commitments on equal opportunity.

The Current Landscape

Currently the responsibility on life chances and equal chances has been transferred to a new administration. The old slogan has been abandoned. The current administration has its own political rhetoric of “removing obstacles to success”. The political group that is increasingly displacing the failing Tories, Reform UK, also has its own terminology – “reindustrialisation”. The terminology to talk about fresh prospects in regions like the one I come from, in my hometown. It suggests that an former economic strength can be reborn into an industrial future.

For the public, it must feel like a repetitive cycle. Identical problem, alternative phrasing. But – as yet – no results.

The Way Forward

Whether the government and opposition want to prevent the same fate, the respective organizations should understand the previous government’s errors on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is simple terminology, but actual achievement of improved opportunities is significantly more difficult. The UK’s chronically poor life chances remains the key issue for our country, with youth unable to get a good job beginning, those putting in effort in occupations with few results after the rent has been paid, and individuals nationwide without any genuine belief their children will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Politicians can talk about fairer opportunities repeatedly. However, which party has the party that has the thorough strategy on equal opportunity? None appear to exist. Whoever gets there first, prevails. Not only for their party, but, more importantly, for a whole country that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so badly.