The author, an FT contributing editor, is chief govt of the Royal Society of Arts and former chief economist on the Financial institution of England
Think about it’s June 2029 and we’re on the eve of a normal election . . .
It’s clear the decisive second for the UK authorities got here in 2025. Simmering discontent about stagnant residing requirements had boiled over right into a second successive summer time of riots. Jolted into motion, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer launched the Lifting Lives (LL) programme.
Its purpose was to rework alternatives for younger folks, particularly these from poorer backgrounds. Echoing the phrases of Robert F Kennedy in 1968, Starmer stated: “The youth of our nation are the clearest mirror of our efficiency. At this time, for a lot of, that mirror is cracked. The federal government can be judged by how properly we restore it, lifting the lives and aspirations of each younger individual within the UK.”
Poverty is a punitive tax on aspiration. In 2025, little one poverty within the UK was anticipated to rise from 4.5mn in the direction of 5mn. By scrapping the two-child profit cap and restoring the 1,400 Certain Begin centres misplaced since 2010, little one poverty has since began falling, decreasing monetary obstacles to aspiration. However these obstacles aren’t solely monetary — they’re digital, well being, work and group associated. These too have been tackled at scale and at supply.
In 2025, round 40 per cent of younger folks lacked entry to broadband and a pc at residence. Beneath the LL programme, a coalition of know-how firms agreed to offer each college within the UK with state-of-the-art know-how and each little one with a pc, broadband entry and an AI-enabled private tutor, with prices partly deductible in opposition to the digital providers tax levied on them. At a stroke, digital exclusion for youngsters was erased.
Digital tutoring was primarily based on “Khanmigo”, an AI-powered software developed by the Khan Academy. Since its introduction, this has achieved its 2025 objective of enhancing tutorial efficiency at comparable ranges to human tutoring, however at a fraction of the associated fee. Personalised studying has benefited these with advanced instructional wants probably the most, together with neurodiverse and lower-achieving kids, shrinking the UK’s stubbornly broad attainment hole.
In 2025, psychological well being issues one in 5 younger folks, but fewer than one in 10 state secondary colleges had a nurse. The LL programme offered each college with an in-house clinician, providing programmes funded by the preventive well being funds in every part from consuming properly to anxiousness, alongside therapy for psychological and bodily well being issues. Having spiralled, psychological well being issues in school-age kids are actually falling.
In 2025, the bridge from schooling to coaching and work was, for a lot of, damaged: 1mn younger folks have been neither in employment nor coaching. These issues have been sourced at school, the place funding for careers recommendation had fallen by two-thirds since 2010. This was then compounded by constricted vocational pathways, particularly for these with low or no {qualifications} — funding for additional schooling schools having fallen by over 10 per cent and apprentice numbers by greater than 1 / 4 since 2010.
Beneath the LL programme, funding for varsity careers advisory providers was restored to 2010 ranges in each college, with native companies offering a structured programme of volunteers, talks and work expertise for each 14 to 18-year-old. To supply a transparent pathway to technical work, a Technical Baccalaureate (TBACC) was launched in all colleges from age 14, modelled on the MBACC pioneered in Manchester.
To strengthen post-school pathways to employment, each younger individual at age 18 was assured both a level, degree-apprentice or apprentice place. To make sure that enterprise participated actively within the latter two programmes, the LL programme supplied tax credit to collaborating firms, along with additional funding for schools and universities providing programs satisfying native enterprise demand, co-financed by enterprise.
These initiatives have prompted a reconfiguration of post-18 schooling. Revolutionary fashions have emerged providing a mixture of technical and interpersonal, alongside tutorial, expertise and matched to native employment wants. Whereas Blackpool and Fylde school and NMITE college in Hereford have been early exemplars, degree-apprenticeships are quick changing into the norm and yesterday’s universities are quickly changing into tomorrow’s “multiversities”.
The path to social mobility typically lies outdoors schooling and work. Analysis has discovered that group and leisure actions are the most effective single technique of constructing social connections and fast-tracking social mobility within the UK. However the variety of youth golf equipment, leisure centres, soccer pitches and libraries throughout the UK had fallen by many hundreds between 2010 and 2025, particularly in poorer locations.
The LL programme has since reversed these tendencies. Since 2025, each one of many 134 groups within the English and Scottish soccer leagues has sponsored a youth membership of their metropolis or city, modelled on the Onside youth zones providing sport, music, cultural and leisure actions for ages eight to 25. Beneath the management of Sir Gareth Southgate, each youth zone additionally presents mentoring providers to sort out the “misplaced boys” (and ladies) drawback.
Stalled for half a century, the chance escalator is in movement. On the eve of the election, the prime minister once more drew on Kennedy’s phrases: “GDP doesn’t measure for the well being of our kids, the standard of their schooling or the enjoyment of their play.” He went on: “Lifting Lives has resulted in a pc and tutor for each little one, a nurse in each college, a profession pathway for each younger grownup and a membership for each group. A mirror cracked now being repaired.”
