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While the beleaguered Tories convenes in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its path forward. Doubt remains if a road forward is available. These are difficult days for a governing group that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to the public.

What Could Have Been

The situation might have been so different if tangible progress had been made on an priority that is important for people throughout the UK: Equal opportunity. Yet Boris Johnson’s government did not possess the basic understanding on how to turn the trendy talk on levelling up into actual implementation. For the two years after the 2019 election, it argued over what the term even meant.

I was perplexed, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what social mobility entailed when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was a term I developed and used at the DfE to talk about life chances. It was our guiding principle, and its purpose is straightforward: social mobility is the method by which we realize equal access – not by taking chances away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by expanding options to those that are without.

Fundamental Idea

An additional vital ministry expression we used, “talent is spread evenly across our country, yet chances are not”, served as a deliberate expression, reflecting the two halves of a social mobility strategy. First, potential shared equally but not developed consistently through our schools and colleges. Second, access not provided uniformly by businesses or our market. Thus, learning and employment were essential to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This constituted an priority about the societal structure of our country – investing in people’s potential and connecting them to opportunities.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up evolve into under the Tory administration? Local investment schemes managed by the DLUHC. Street beautification and rearranged intersections. A white paper was published nearly three years after Johnson became leader, which saw ongoing initiatives rebadged under the new levelling up banner.

Therefore, a broader social mobility agenda went unpursued, as well as all the improvement that it could have inspired – in funding, commerce, fiscal strategy, revenue and in local regeneration. Moreover, in learning, including a higher education sector that has become a target for leaders across parties – even though it remains the primary vehicle of upward movement for young working-class people, personally, this country has had throughout modern times. Perhaps the primary source of equal opportunity, working extensively.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is vital for our country to thrive. For people to have aspiration, there needs to be a realistic expectation that effort and reward are linked; that if people dream big, they can attain. For all administrations, being able to instil a sense of optimism about the years ahead is crucial. Analysis by the academic institution at the university and others, newly available, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to enhancing learning results – led to students in those neighborhoods being up to a significant margin more optimistic 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 rapidly and effectively change how people feel about their future.

Squandered Chances

Oblivious to this, and in the middle of its new leader election, in that period, the Tory administration ended the initiatives. Why should any person in those regions vote for a party that did that? The opportunity areas policy is a clear case of what could have been a transformative administration strategy on social mobility, but that opportunity was hopelessly squandered. Strategies such as this can generate optimism and ambition. Conversely, as the ruling party learned, failing to deliver of social mobility is the biggest blunder any leadership can make. The public penalized the government for its failure but, perhaps most of all, for its unfulfilled commitments on levelling up.

Today’s Political Reality

Now the responsibility on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has been transferred to a Labour government. The old slogan has been abandoned. The current administration has its own political rhetoric of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The political group that is gradually replacing the failing Tories, the alternative party, also has its own language – “economic renewal”. The terminology to talk about fresh prospects in areas like the one I grew up in, in South Yorkshire. It promises that an industrial past can be reborn into an revitalized economy.

For the public, 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 prevent the same fate, each group should understand the Conservatives’ failure on levelling up; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but effective implementation of improved opportunities is much harder. Our nation’s persistently low social mobility remains the primary challenge for our country, with young people unable to get a good job beginning, those putting in effort in employment with few results after the housing costs are covered, and individuals nationwide without any real hope their next generation will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Elected officials can discuss improved access however much they like. But where is the party that has the complete plan on social mobility? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, wins. Not only for their organization, but, crucially, for a whole country that has desperately requires fair chances so desperately.