The government has vastly underestimated what the public understands as ‘levelling up’

A year ago, the seemingly impossible happened. Rock solid, red wall Labour seats, like the ones I grew up in around South Yorkshire, voted for the Conservative Party led by an old-Etonian. It was not a result that many people saw coming.

It was an odd feeling to see the results come in but not directly be part of it, as it was also the first general election for 15 years that I had not stood in, having already announced I’d be standing down as an MP.

The 80-seat majority in Parliament Boris Johnson’s government secured, brought with it promises to level up Britain. But 12 months on, we have all watched as it’s been engulfed by dealing with a coronavirus pandemic.

Going into 2021, Boris Johnson faces both a choice and a risk if he wants to deliver on his promise and keep those seats he unexpectedly won.

His choice is whether or not he allows the government to be knocked off course from delivering his promise of “levelling up” Britain. This is a country with an endemic inequality of opportunity that must be tackled.

Equality of opportunity is not just about enough opportunity, it is about fair opportunity too. Delivering "levelling up" is about delivering on both. In a downturn, the tendency for the political system will be to myopically focus on the numbers of young people out of work. That’s understandable, but it’s not enough. In 2021 Mr Johnson must bring forward a comprehensive, cross-government plan on how he intends to ensure that Britain becomes a country where access to opportunity is fair for all.

That plan can link up with those of us already working hard outside Parliament, to spread the opportunities there are to where they can make a real difference. The Social Mobility Pledge campaign has brought together businesses and universities to work in communities around the country doing the grassroots work to change lives on the ground.

If Mr Johnson connects up an education strategy to this work, through more successful place-based efforts like Opportunity Areas, it could make a real and rapid difference.

Mr Johnson’s choice is an easy one – do we want children growing up able to fulfil their potential and contribute to our country or not?

But his risk is that he leads a government, which talks a good game on “levelling up” but then shows it doesn’t actually know what it really means to people and that it’s a national issue, not a regional one.

“Levelling up” is about the economic, political and social change needed to break Britain’s tradition of inequality of opportunity.  

If ministers think levelling up just relates to potholes in roads, or better trains, or even hanging baskets – the “small stuff”, making an area look “nice”, as one commentator suggested this week, then they risk badly misjudging the level of expectations of the public.

“Levelling up” Britain is about the right for you and your family to be able to get on in life, whoever you are and wherever you are living. It’s about a belief that people can lift their own lives and their own country, but they need the education, the skills and the opportunity to do that. It means that the life chances of all our people are similarly high, not just those lucky enough to get the best possible start. It’s achieved when that’s the case for all of us, not just some of us. It’s fundamentally an agenda about people, not “things”.

And “levelling up” isn’t just about the North, because fairer access to opportunity is needed for the whole country, whether north or south, rural, town or city. For example, London’s young people and those on lower incomes have seen their jobs and economy hammered by Covid-19. 

As of October, the claimant count had nearly doubled. The sectors of financial and professional services, and the City are some of the most closed-off careers in the country, yet it is these sectors that weather the coronavirus storm. The more open careers – retail, hospitality, tourism and culture – have been worse hit. 

Focusing on fair opportunity as well as enough opportunity is vital. The door to opportunity only works if it’s open. For too many in our capital city, the doors to opportunity are unacceptably and firmly shut. London needs a "levelling up" plan. Everywhere does.

In 2021, Mr Johnson must get on track with levelling up Britain. If last year’s election showed us anything it is that Britain is impatient for change. A focus on levelling up Britain in 2021 is about more than just delivering on a manifesto promise, it’s about not wasting any more time, not wasting any more talent. Every day lost to inequality of opportunity costs us all. Now is the time for action.

Justine Greening, former secretary of state for education and founder of the Social Mobility Pledge