Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what comparative assessment he has made of the number of students who go to university from (a) Portsmouth South constituency and (b) the rest of England.

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) publishes data on the number of 18 year olds accepted to full-time undergraduate higher education (HE) courses in the UK by domicile and parliament constituency.

The attached table shows the number of 18 year old accepted applicants to UK HE providers, the population estimates for the number of 18 year olds and the entry rate of 18 year old accepted applicants to UK HE providers for the Portsmouth South constituency and England.

In 2020, the entry rate of 18 year old accepted applicants to UK HE providers for Portsmouth South was 26.9%, compared to 37.9% for England, a difference of 11 percentage points.