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As the beleaguered Tories meets in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has a lot to reflect on regarding its next steps. Doubt remains if a road forward remains open. We are in tough times for a governing group that now has almost nothing, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

The Missed Opportunity

The situation might have been so different if real advances had been made on an policy focus that is important for people across the country: Equal opportunity. But Boris Johnson’s government lacked the slightest idea on how to convert his zeitgeisty rhetoric on social mobility into actual implementation. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it debated what the phrase actually signified.

It seemed strange to me, because I’d already told the Prime Minister what social mobility signified when we originally talked about it during his leadership campaign. This terminology was a concept I originated and used at the Department for Education to talk about life chances. It was our core mission, and its definition is straightforward: levelling up is the approach by which we achieve fair chances – not through reducing prospects away from those who possess it, but rather by expanding opportunities to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial ministry expression we used, “ability is distributed uniformly around the UK, yet chances are not”, represented another a intentional wording, representing the two halves of a fairness agenda. First, potential shared equally but not nurtured uniformly through our schools and colleges. Second, chances not distributed fairly by the private sector or our economic system. As a result, learning and employment were essential to achieving stronger social mobility. This was an agenda about the community framework of our country – investing in individual capabilities and connecting them to chances.

The Actual Outcome

How did the social mobility agenda become under Johnson’s Conservatives? A towns fund administered out of the DLUHC. Street beautification and redeveloped traffic systems. An official policy document was released nearly three years after the leadership change, which saw existing policy approaches relabelled under the recently branded agenda.

Therefore, a comprehensive equal opportunity plan went ignored, as well as all the change that it might have driven – in capital, enterprise, economic policy, taxation and in place-making. Moreover, in learning, including a tertiary education that has become a target for elected officials – despite the fact that it remains the primary vehicle of upward movement for youth from modest backgrounds, including myself, this country has had throughout modern times. Perhaps the sole mechanism of social mobility, operating at scale.

The Role of Ambition

Aspiration is essential for our country to thrive. To foster ambition, there needs to be a credible sense that dedication and outcome are related; that if people aim high, they can succeed. For all administrations, being able to create a feeling of hope about the future is crucial. Analysis by the academic institution at the academic establishment and others, recently released, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I launched while in office – locally targeted strategies to boosting academic achievement – led to youth in those neighborhoods being up to 18 percentage points more hopeful about their prospects than those in equivalent locations without these initiatives in place. The evidence is clear: just making an authentic start on fair opportunity strategies can rapidly and effectively change how people view their prospects.

Squandered Chances

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its post-Johnson leadership contest, in September 2022, the Conservative government ended the initiatives. Why would anyone 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 game-changing administration strategy on social mobility, but that possibility was completely wasted. Approaches such as this can create belief and drive. In contrast, as the Tories found out, breaking the promise of fair chances is the most expensive error any government can make. The electorate punished the leadership for its ineffectiveness but, primarily, for its unfulfilled commitments on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

At present the mandate on equal opportunity and equality of opportunity has been taken up by a opposition party. The old slogan has been discarded. Labour has its own political rhetoric of “removing obstacles to success”. The party that is gradually replacing the hapless Tories, Reform UK, also has its own message – “economic renewal”. The terminology to talk about additional chances in regions like the one I come from, in the region. It suggests that an historical manufacturing base can be reborn into an revitalized economy.

To the electorate, it must appear as a déjà vu experience. Identical problem, alternative phrasing. However, so far, no progress.

Lessons for the Future

Whether the government and opposition want to escape the identical outcome, the respective organizations should learn from the previous government’s errors on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is one thing, but actual achievement of more equal results is much harder. Britain’s chronically poor life chances remains the central problem 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.

Leaders can mention equal chances as much as they want. Yet where is the political group that has the thorough strategy on social mobility? I see none. Whichever party succeeds initially, prevails. Not only for their organization, but, crucially, for a complete society that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so badly.