Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps the Government is taking to increase representation of BME students in leading universities.

The Prime Minister has a goal of increasing by 20% the number of BME students in higher education. In our new guidance to the Director of Fair Access, which we published on 11 February, we ask him to maximise the contribution of Access Agreements towards this ambition. The share of BME enrolments at UK institutions has already risen from just over 20% to 23% between 2009/10 and 2014/15. Entry rates for 18 year olds in each ethnic group increased in 2015, reaching the highest recorded values for each group. Between 2009 and 2015, the entry rate for young people in the Black ethnic group increased by over 40 percent proportionally.

Investment by the higher education sector through Access Agreements is expected to reach £746 million in 2016/17 up from £404 million in 2009/10.

The Government accepts that selective institutions already do much to widen participation. We also acknowledge the work that they already do. Nonetheless, we are convinced that more could and should be done. In our recent guidance to the Director of Fair Access, www.offa.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/11-02-2016-OFFA-Guidance.pdf we asked him to secure more progress. Institutions must use evidence and good practice to lever better results and there needs to be more innovation in this area. As the Director of Fair has also said, ‘it should not be beyond institutions themselves to find ways of making more progress.’