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While the beleaguered Tories meets in Manchester for its annual party conference, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its path forward. It’s not even clear if a viable path is available. These are difficult days for a political party that now has little, if anything, fresh or distinctive to say to the public.

What Could Have Been

It could have been markedly improved if real advances had been made on an policy focus that is important for people throughout the UK: Social mobility. But the previous administration lacked the slightest idea on how to turn the popular slogan on social mobility into policy reality. During the initial period after the general election, it discussed what the phrase truly represented.

I found it bizarre, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what levelling up meant when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was language I created and used at the DfE to talk about life chances. It served as our core mission, and its purpose is unambiguous: social mobility is the means by which we achieve equality of opportunity – without removing opportunity away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by providing opportunities to those that are without.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial education department term we used, “ability is distributed uniformly throughout the nation, however access isn’t”, served as a purposeful phrase, embodying the two halves of a fairness agenda. Initially, potential shared equally but not cultivated evenly through our schools and colleges. Furthermore, opportunities not spread evenly by the private sector or our market. Thus, schools and companies were key to achieving improved equality of opportunity. This represented an mission about the societal structure of our country – fostering human talent and connecting them to chances.

The Reality of Implementation

What did the social mobility agenda turn into under the previous government? A towns fund administered out of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Hanging baskets and rearranged intersections. A government strategy was published almost thirty-six months after Johnson became leader, which saw current strategies repackaged under the recently branded agenda.

Consequently, a broader social mobility agenda went undeveloped, as well as all the reform that it may have generated – in funding, commerce, financial planning, tax and in local regeneration. Additionally, in education, including a tertiary education that has become a scapegoat for leaders across parties – despite the fact that it remains the most powerful engine of social mobility for young working-class people, personally, this country has had throughout modern times. Perhaps the primary source of fair chances, functioning widely.

The Role of Ambition

Aspiration is vital for our country to thrive. To foster ambition, there needs to be a believable feeling that hard work and results are connected; that if people dream big, they can achieve. For all administrations, being able to foster a feeling of hope about the years ahead is critical. Research by the academic institution at the university and others, published last month, showed that the education department’s targeted regions I introduced as education secretary – place-based approaches to improving education outcomes – led to youth in those areas being up to a significant margin more hopeful about their future than those in similar areas without these initiatives in place. The research confirms: just making an authentic start on pro-social mobility policy can swiftly and beneficially change how people feel about their future.

Squandered Chances

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its new leader election, in autumn 2022, the Conservative government closed opportunity areas down. What reason would someone in those communities vote for a organization that made that decision? The targeted programme is a clear case of what could have been a transformative administration strategy on levelling up, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Strategies such as this can generate optimism and ambition. On the other hand, as the ruling party discovered, reneging on commitments of social mobility is the costliest mistake any leadership can make. The public held accountable the government for its failure but, above all, for its broken promises on levelling up.

Today’s Political Reality

Currently the responsibility on life chances and fair access has been taken up by a new administration. The old slogan has been abandoned. The new government has its own public messaging of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The political group that is gradually replacing the hapless Conservative party, the alternative party, also has its own language – “industrial revival”. This expression to talk about additional chances in regions like the one I was raised in, in South Yorkshire. It suggests that an former economic strength can reincarnate into an industrial future.

For the public, it must feel like a Groundhog Day-style loop. Same issue, different language. But – as yet – no results.

Lessons for the Future

If Labour and Reform UK want to prevent the same fate, each group should learn from the Conservatives’ failure on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is simple terminology, but successful delivery of fairer outcomes is much harder. The UK’s persistently low life chances remains the key issue for our country, with young people unable to get a good job beginning, those working hard in employment with minimal progress after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any real hope their children will be able to do advance in life than they have.

Elected officials can discuss fairer opportunities repeatedly. But where is the political group that has the complete plan on social mobility? I see none. Whoever gets there first, succeeds. Not only for their organization, but, more importantly, for a whole country that has never needed equality of opportunity so urgently.