CONGRATULATIONS to everyone who picked up their GCSE results today. Tomorrow's newspaper, like the website, will be full of amazing stories of youngsters who have triumphed.

Young people don’t get enough praise from the older generations so nothing should be said to take the shine off their achievements. This is the cohort of youngsters who were at the beginning of their secondary time when the pandemic struck in 2020 so they really have been through the wringer.

However, it would be wrong to let this moment pass, when exam results are uppermost in everyone’s minds, and not mention the educational gap between north and south.

Good news! It has closed. The proportion of North East students getting top grades has risen slightly, from 17.6 per cent to 17.8 per cent, while in London – the best performing region – it has risen from 28.4 per cent to 28.5 per cent.

So the gap has narrowed from 10.8 per cent to 10.7 per cent – the first narrowing since 2016. In every other year since 2016, the gap has widened.

If this rate of closure continues, it will be 107 years – 2131 – before North East children get the same exam results as those in the south.

How many generations of unfair educational attainment is that?

The A Levels picture of regional disparities was very, very similar. The sad conclusion is that in this country, the accident of where you live will have a huge impact on your educational outcomes and so on your life chances.

“Levelling up” was a great phrase because, for the first time, it was possible to talk about these inequalities, but the Conservatives lacked the wherewithal to get under the bonnet of society and really change it. A super-shiny railway station does not level up GCSE results.

Labour’s new Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, herself a Sunderland MP, talks of the “unacceptable, entrenched regional disparities we have seen time and time again”. It is now for Labour, for the good of the country, to narrow these gaps.