University Admission
Debate between James Clappison and Julian LewisWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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Mr Clappison
That happily brings me to my next point. I imagine that the Minister will say, in his fair way, exactly what he said to the Daily Mail a few months ago. I am sure he will be anxious to reassure us that the Government intend universities to be free to continue to make judgments and admissions based on individual merit. However, in light of the guidance given to universities by the Office for Fair Access, I am afraid I will not able to place as much confidence in the Minister’s reassurance as I would like, and it would be stretching my credulity to accept it at face value. In the long directive from the Office for Fair Access, the word “merit” appears only once after 25 paragraphs of detailed instructions to universities, backed by the threat of financial pressure. It uses the words
“so long as individuals are considered on their merits and institutions’ procedures are fair, transparent and evidence based.”
That is the only place I can find the word “merit”, and it appears in much the same place as one would expect to find the legal small print in an advertising brochure.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
As my hon. Friend may know, I voted against the trebling of tuition fees. I did that as someone who has been to one of the top universities on a maximum grant. When I applied to that university, I was looking not for privileged treatment in the admission exam, but for fair treatment, and for the ability to afford the course if I were fortunate enough to be successful. We were told that trebling fees would not put off people from poorer backgrounds from applying. We are now told that for people from poorer backgrounds to apply, we must socially engineer the people who get in. The narrative seems to have changed and it now contradicts what was said before. Instead of people getting in on merit, they are getting in on considerations of social position.
Mr Clappison
My hon. Friend’s point will be widely shared and many people have come to the same conclusion. There is always a problem with such attempts to compensate. Even though bursaries are rightly awarded to people from lower-income families, there will always be a family on lower-middle income, or in straitened circumstances, who remain just above the level at which bursaries are awarded. They are called the “squeezed middle”. When the previous Government introduced fees at a much lower level, my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Justice raised that issue as a particular problem with the fee system, and it is a matter to which we must devote some research. We all want students to be encouraged to go to the university of their choice and not to be discouraged by their financial circumstances.