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University Admission

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) for securing the opportunity to debate this important issue. As he was so generous in what he said about me personally, let me reciprocate. I understand his personal commitment to what he rightly described as the principle of merit—meritocracy. I would argue that equality of opportunity, rather than equality of outcome, is a key principle that the Conservative party believes in and that is probably shared by all parties. The question is about how we apply the principle of merit and ensure meritocracy. The argument that we in government have gone though is as follows. First, we would all accept that, when going to university, merit involves some assessment of potential, not just what has already been achieved academically. Let us put ourselves in the position of an admissions tutor at one of the universities that my hon. Friend mentions. Let us say that two 18-year-olds present themselves. One has had an incredibly tough upbringing and been to a rather mediocre school with low educational standards, the other has had every advantage in life and benefited from high-quality schooling, but they have the same A-level grades. We would probably all intuitively reach a judgment about who had the higher underlying intellectual merit.