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While the struggling Conservative party convenes in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its next steps. Doubt remains if a viable path remains open. We are in difficult days for a political party that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

What Could Have Been

Things could have turned out vastly better if real advances had been made on an policy focus that is important for people throughout the UK: Levelling up. However Boris Johnson’s government lacked the basic understanding on how to turn the trendy talk on levelling up into actual implementation. During the initial period after the 2019 election, it debated what the phrase even meant.

I found it bizarre, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what levelling up signified when we initially discussed about it during the contest for party leader. The phrase was a term I developed and used at the education ministry to talk about social mobility. It served as our departmental mantra, and its meaning is straightforward: social mobility is the means by which we achieve equal access – without removing opportunity away from those who possess it, but rather by expanding opportunities to those that are without.

The Core Concept

The other key DfE phrase we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, yet chances are not”, again was a intentional wording, embodying the two halves of a fairness agenda. To begin with, ability distributed uniformly but not nurtured uniformly through our schools and colleges. Second, chances not distributed fairly by employers or our market. As a result, learning and employment were key to achieving better life chances. This was an mission about the societal structure of our country – supporting human talent and providing access to chances.

What Levelling Up Became

What did levelling up become under Johnson’s Conservatives? Local investment schemes overseen from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Street beautification and reconfigured roundabouts and roads. An official policy document was published almost thirty-six months after Johnson became leader, which saw ongoing initiatives rebadged under the new levelling up banner.

As a result, a broader social mobility agenda went ignored, as well as all the change that it may have generated – in funding, enterprise, economic policy, tax and in place-making. And, of course, in education, including a higher education sector that has become a target for leaders across parties – despite the fact that it remains the strongest driver of life improvement for individuals from less privileged homes, like me, this country has had throughout modern times. Possibly the sole mechanism of fair chances, operating at scale.

The Importance of Aspiration

Ambition is vital for our country to succeed. For hope to exist, there needs to be a believable feeling that effort and reward are linked; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For political leadership, being able to create a outlook of positivity about the future is crucial. Analysis by the Institute for Policy Research at Bath University and others, recently released, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I introduced as education secretary – locally targeted strategies to improving education outcomes – led to students in those areas being up to a significant margin more optimistic about their life ahead than those in comparable communities without these programmes in place. The data shows: just making an sincere effort on fair opportunity strategies can swiftly and beneficially change how people view their future.

Missed Opportunities

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its new leader election, in that period, the Tory administration closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those regions vote for a political group that did that? This specific initiative is a clear case of what could have been a transformative Conservative government agenda on social mobility, but that possibility was hopelessly squandered. Strategies such as this can inspire hope and aspiration. Conversely, as the Conservatives found out, failing to deliver of fair chances is the most expensive error any government can make. Voters penalized the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, above all, for its failed pledges on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

Now the responsibility on equal opportunity and fair access has been transferred to a new administration. The previous terminology has been abandoned. The new government has its own policy language of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The organization that is steadily supplanting the hapless incumbents, Reform UK, also has its own message – “economic renewal”. This expression to talk about new opportunities in areas like the one I grew up in, in South Yorkshire. It promises that an industrial past can reincarnate into an industrial future.

For the public, it must appear as a déjà vu experience. Same issue, alternative phrasing. But – as yet – no results.

What Must Change

If Labour and Reform UK want to prevent the same fate, both these parties should understand the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is easy to say, but actual achievement of more equal results is significantly more difficult. The UK’s persistently low life chances remains the central problem for our country, with youth unable to get a decent career start, those putting in effort in occupations with minimal progress after the housing costs are covered, and citizens throughout the UK without any real hope their next generation will be able to do improve in life than they have.

Leaders can talk about equal chances repeatedly. But where is the political group that has the comprehensive policy agenda on equal opportunity? I observe no such party. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not just for themselves, but, significantly, for a complete society that has never needed equal access so desperately.