Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of gathering (a) data on pupil absence due to the covid-19 outbreak and (b) other data on pupils to assist universities with the entrance selection for 2021.

We recognise that students applying to university in 2021 have experienced unprecedented disruption to their education as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Universities have an important role to play in ensuring that this is a country where everyone can reach their potential, regardless of their background or ethnicity.

Universities are independent and autonomous institutions. As such, how to use data in their admissions decisions is a matter for each individual higher education provider.

However, we would encourage universities to be flexible when making offers to individual students whose education has been disproportionally and adversely impacted from the COVID-19 outbreak, to ensure that these students are able to receive fair offers for 2021. We will give further and higher education providers the earliest possible indication of the process and timescale for how grades will be awarded this year, so they can plan accordingly.

The department continues to regularly publish statistics on pupil attendance and COVID-related absence in schools.