🔗 Share this article

As the existentially challenged Tories meets in its conference city for its yearly gathering, it has plenty to consider regarding its next steps. Doubt remains if a viable path remains open. These are difficult days for a governing group that now has little, if anything, new or unique to say to voters.

The Missed Opportunity

It could have been markedly improved if tangible progress had been made on an priority that matters to people throughout the UK: Social mobility. Yet the previous administration lacked the first clue on how to turn the trendy talk on social mobility into concrete action. Over twenty-four months after the general election, it debated what the concept actually signified.

I found it bizarre, because I had clearly defined for Johnson what levelling up signified when we initially discussed about it during his leadership campaign. The phrase was language I created and used at the education ministry to talk about equal opportunity. This became our guiding principle, and its definition is unambiguous: social mobility is the approach by which we realize equality of opportunity – not through reducing chances away from those who already have it, but rather by extending chances to those that don’t.

Fundamental Idea

An additional vital ministry expression we used, “potential is equally shared around the UK, however access isn’t”, represented another a purposeful phrase, representing the dual components of a fairness agenda. First, ability distributed uniformly but not cultivated evenly through our learning institutions. Second, access not provided uniformly by the private sector or our economy. Thus, schools and companies were crucial to achieving better life chances. This represented an mission about the community framework of our country – fostering human talent and linking them with opportunities.

The Actual Outcome

How did the social mobility agenda evolve into under the previous government? A towns fund managed by the DLUHC. Street beautification and redeveloped traffic systems. A government strategy was released almost thirty-six months after Johnson became leader, which saw current strategies relabelled under the recently branded agenda.

As a result, a broader social mobility agenda went undeveloped, as well as all the change that it might have driven – in funding, commerce, economic policy, revenue and in community development. Moreover, in schooling, including a higher education sector that has become a target for leaders across parties – although it remains the most powerful engine of life improvement for youth from modest backgrounds, including myself, this country has had over the past 30 years. Maybe the only engine of equal opportunity, operating at scale.

The Role of Ambition

Ambition is vital for our country to prosper. For hope to exist, there needs to be a credible sense that hard work and results are linked; that if people aspire, they can achieve. For any government, being able to foster a sense of optimism about the future is crucial. Research by the Institute for Policy Research at the academic establishment and others, newly available, showed that the DfE’s 12 “opportunity areas” I introduced as education secretary – locally targeted strategies to boosting academic achievement – led to students in those neighborhoods being up to 18 percentage points more hopeful about their prospects than those in similar areas without these initiatives 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 prospects.

Missed Opportunities

Oblivious to this, and in the middle of its successor selection process, in that period, the ruling party terminated the programmes. Why would anyone in those areas vote for a party that took that action? The targeted programme is a clear case of what could have been a revolutionary Tory policy platform on social mobility, but that possibility was totally misused. Strategies such as this can create belief and drive. On the other hand, as the Tories learned, reneging on commitments of equal opportunity is the biggest blunder any political party can make. The electorate held accountable the administration for its ineffectiveness but, perhaps most of all, for its broken promises on equal opportunity.

Today’s Political Reality

At present the baton on social mobility and fair access has passed to a Labour government. The levelling up rhetoric has been cast off. Labour has its own political rhetoric of “removing obstacles to success”. The party that is gradually replacing the failing Conservative party, 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 claims that an former economic strength can reincarnate into an industrial future.

For the public, it must appear as a déjà vu experience. Same issue, different language. Yet, currently, little improvement.

Lessons for the Future

If Labour and Reform UK want to escape the identical outcome, both these parties should learn from the Tories’ mistakes on social mobility; that equal opportunity talk is simple terminology, but successful delivery of more equal results is significantly more difficult. The UK’s persistently low social mobility remains the primary challenge for our country, with young people unable to get a proper professional launch, those laboring in full-time jobs with few results after the rent has been paid, and people across the country without any real hope their offspring will be able to do any better in life than they have.

Politicians can discuss improved access as much as they want. However, which party has the party that has the thorough strategy on social mobility? I observe no such party. Whichever party succeeds initially, succeeds. Not only for themselves, but, significantly, for a entire nation that has never needed fair chances so badly.