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As the beleaguered Conservative party convenes in Manchester for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its next steps. There is uncertainty if a clear direction is available. These are difficult days for a governing group that now has very little, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

An Alternate Reality

The situation might have been so different if real advances had been made on an agenda that is important for people nationwide: Social mobility. Yet the previous administration did not possess the basic understanding on how to convert the popular slogan on levelling up into concrete action. For the two years after the general election, it argued over what the concept truly represented.

I was perplexed, because I had clearly defined for the Prime Minister what social mobility meant when we first spoke about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was a concept I originated and used at the education ministry to talk about equal opportunity. It was our guiding principle, and its meaning is unambiguous: social mobility is the approach by which we attain equality of opportunity – not through reducing chances away from those who are already advantaged, but rather by providing chances to those that lack them.

Fundamental Idea

Another crucial DfE phrase we used, “ability is distributed uniformly throughout the nation, however access isn’t”, represented another a intentional wording, representing the dual components of a equal opportunity plan. Initially, ability distributed uniformly but not cultivated evenly through our learning institutions. Second, access not provided uniformly by the private sector or our economic system. Therefore, learning and employment were crucial to achieving better life chances. This was an agenda about the social fabric of our country – investing in people’s potential and providing access to chances.

The Actual Outcome

What did the social mobility agenda turn into under the previous government? Local investment schemes overseen from the the relevant ministry. Decorative floral displays and redeveloped traffic systems. An official policy document was launched nearly three years after the Prime Minister took office, which saw existing policy approaches rebadged under the fresh social mobility slogan.

Therefore, a broader social mobility agenda went unpursued, as well as all the change that it could have inspired – in funding, enterprise, economic policy, tax and in place-making. Moreover, in schooling, including a university system that has become a target for politicians of all stripes – even though it remains the primary vehicle of life improvement for young working-class people, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Perhaps the primary source of fair chances, operating at scale.

Why Hope Matters

Hope is crucial for our country to succeed. For hope to exist, there needs to be a believable feeling that hard work and results are connected; that if people aim high, they can attain. For political leadership, being able to instil a outlook of positivity about the years ahead is crucial. Research 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 enhancing learning results – led to young people in those communities being up to nearly one-fifth more optimistic about their prospects than those in similar areas without these schemes in place. The data shows: just making an genuine beginning on pro-social mobility policy can quickly and positively change how people feel about their future.

Lost Potential

Ignoring this evidence, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in September 2022, the ruling party closed opportunity areas down. Why should any person in those regions vote for a party that took that action? The targeted programme is one example of what might have become a game-changing Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that opportunity was completely wasted. Methods such as this can generate optimism and ambition. On the other hand, as the ruling party learned, breaking the promise of fair chances is the most expensive error any leadership can make. Voters held accountable the administration for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on social mobility.

The Current Landscape

Currently the responsibility on social mobility and equality of opportunity has passed to a new administration. The levelling up rhetoric has been abandoned. Labour has its own public messaging of “breaking down the barriers to opportunity”. The organization that is gradually replacing the struggling Conservative party, the alternative party, also has its own terminology – “reindustrialisation”. The terminology to talk about additional chances in areas like the one I come from, in the region. It promises that an former economic strength can be reborn into an modern manufacturing sector.

For voters, it must appear as a Groundhog Day-style loop. Identical problem, different language. Yet, currently, little improvement.

Lessons for the Future

If Labour and Reform UK want to prevent the identical outcome, the respective organizations should understand the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that social mobility rhetoric is one thing, but effective implementation of improved opportunities is significantly more difficult. Our nation’s persistently low life chances remains the key issue for our country, with the next generation unable to get a good job beginning, those laboring in occupations with little to show after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any real hope their children will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Leaders can mention fairer opportunities repeatedly. But where is the organization that has the comprehensive policy agenda on equal opportunity? I observe no such party. The first to achieve this, prevails. Not only for their organization, but, significantly, for a entire nation that has desperately requires equality of opportunity so urgently.