This week, the Sutton Trust attended the Conservative Party’s first conference as the Official Opposition since 2009. With a theme of ‘review and rebuild’, the focus was on the identity of the party and how best to hold the new Labour government to account over the next few years.

We were pleased to host a forward-looking event, titled ‘Where next for social mobility?’ Chaired by our CEO, Nick Harrison, we welcomed Shadow Education Minister, Gagan Mohindra MP; Children’s Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza; and the Centre for Social Justice’s Deputy Policy Director, Sophia Worringer. They spoke alongside the Trust’s Director for Research and Policy, Carl Cullinane, to discuss ways to break the link between someone’s background and their future outcomes.

Carl said that it’s right to take a broad view of social mobility, not simply catapulting a select few to the top of the social ladder. He discussed the need for a national strategy to close the attainment gap, with a renewed focus on tutoring targeted at those from disadvantaged backgrounds. There is extensive evidence that tutoring could play a major part in closing this gap.

Panellists also spoke about the need to close the gap in social capital between disadvantaged young people and their peers. The Trust’s recent Life Lessons 2024 report found that almost all teachers think life skills are at least as important, or more important, than formal academic qualifications in determining how well young people do in adulthood.

Taking questions from the audience, panellists considered barriers to promoting social mobility including absence from school, with students eligible for free school meals three times more likely to be severely absent than their peers.

The Sutton Trust also attended several other fringe events. On Tuesday, Nick spoke on a panel, hosted by the Education Policy Institute and supported by teachers’ union NASUWT, about fair funding for schools and exploring reform to the National Funding Formula.

Nick emphasised that school funding per pupil remains below 2010 levels and that changes to the NFF in 2017 benefitted schools in more advantaged areas. This has contributed to a worsening of the disadvantage gap between rich and poor, exacerbated by the fact that funding to support disadvantaged students, such as Pupil Premium, has not kept up with inflation.

He also highlighted findings from the Sutton Trust revealing that school leaders are increasingly turning to Pupil Premium funding to address growing deficits in schools’ general budgets. The national funding formula should be reformed to rebalance funds back towards schools serving the most disadvantaged communities, with a specific element reflecting persistent disadvantage.

Of course, this year’s conference was dominated by the party’s ongoing leadership election to replace Rishi Sunak, meaning there were no official party policy announcements until the new Leader’s team is in place after 2 November.

Each of the four remaining leadership candidates – Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick, and Tom Tugendhat – set out their competing visions for the party, initially in a series of interviews on Monday and Tuesday. Education did not feature prominently in these discussions, with what little mention there was focussing only on the minority of students in private and grammar schools.

Then, on Wednesday, the four candidates delivered speeches from the main stage, setting out their pitches directly to party members. James Cleverly and Robert Jenrick defended the Conservatives’ education record, arguing that the last government raised education standards. Tom Tugendhat said that he would end the cap on apprenticeships, arguing that Britain needs to train more workers and apprentices to reduce net migration, while Kemi Badenoch recognised the need to defend and attract young people to the party by returning to Conservative principles.

With less focus on education in the leadership candidates’ pitches, the various education-related fringe events provided a sense of what’s at the top of Conservative MPs’ agendas. In an event on reforming the economy, Shadow Business and Trade Secretary Kevin Hollinrake expressed his dissatisfaction with the apprenticeship levy and called for it to be scrapped, caveating that this was not official Conservative Party policy. The Sutton Trust has long called for levy reform to address the decline in overall apprenticeship starts, as well as to rebalance the profile of apprenticeships back towards those who are younger and more disadvantaged.

Elsewhere, there was general agreement among party figures of the importance of work and life skills in education, with apprenticeships forming a vital part of this. Shadow Education Secretary Damian Hinds emphasised the importance of teaching soft skills on a Prince’s Trust panel. And, at a Resolution Foundation event, Shadow Development Minister Harriett Baldwin called for more incentives for small businesses to take on and train young apprentices. Ahead of the General Election, the Sutton Trust called for the introduction of new apprenticeship incentives in our manifesto, such as offering employers £3,000 to hire new apprentices under 25.

It was positive to see the importance of skills for young people and the role they play in economic growth highlighted at several fringe events, although there is a long way to go to put promoting social mobility and tackling educational inequality at the top of the policy agenda where it belongs.

The Conservatives’ return to Opposition represents an opportunity to flesh out a substantial offering to young people over the next few years. We look forward to engaging with the new leadership, as well as all the major parties, over the course of this parliament.