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Higher Education

The hon. Gentleman knows a lot about it. I know a little bit about his Oxford set and the old Etonians at that university. The perception among many ordinary bright young kids—and he will never be able to see this—is that those universities are not for them, because the pervading ethos is set by a restricted and privileged group of young people. We underestimate that. Five years ago, we said that bright kids from working class homes were put off applying for Oxford and Cambridge because the system of application is so distinctive and so different. We took evidence that because Oxford and Cambridge were different, ordinary kids in ordinary comprehensives who were bright enough to be predicted to get three A grades were put off applying because they saw those universities as different, exclusive and not for them. We recommended on an all-party basis that that system should change.