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Dr. Evan Harris: Is not the situation even worse than that? Increasing research shows that of those students who get the same grades on the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service tariff but who come from different academic backgrounds, such as a top independent school with a high teacher-student ratio compared with an inner-city comprehensive, those from the comprehensive do better. We need to move away from simple A-level predictions across the board as a way of judging who would best benefit from higher education.
Mr. Rendel: That is the last time that I take an intervention from my hon. Friend because he deals with what I was about to come on to. However, I am grateful to him for making that good point.
Mr. Robert Jackson: Since the hon. Gentleman will not answer the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris), perhaps he will answer me. What proportion of young people from independent schools, compared with state schools, get three As at A-level?
Mr. Rendel: If the question is what I think it is, I am afraid that I do not know the answer. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to tell us.
Mr. Jackson: The figure is 46 per cent.
Mr. Rendel: I am grateful for that piece of information, although I am not sure where it gets us.
Mr. Chaytor: Surely the real purpose of the question put by the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson) is not the proportion of those from independent schools with three A-levels but the relationship of those with three A-levels from state and independent schools in terms of the proportion admitted to our leading research universities. That is the issue.
Mr. Rendel: I hope that was the point I was making, which is why I was a little confused about the hon. Gentleman's question.
The Conservative motion is critical of a higher education admissions policy in which class is seen as the principal issue. Our criticism of their policy is that they seem intent on making sure that class is very much the issue. They are content with a situation in which fewer than 10 per cent. of pupils—those who attend private school—are privileged above the rest, because admission to university is almost wholly dependent at present on A-level grades.
How do we know that A-level grades are not an adequate measure of the potential of our best students? There are two pointers, one of which has just been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris). It has been shown that young
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people from state comprehensives, on average, achieve better results in their university finals than young people from independent schools who have the same A-level grades.
The second pointer, which my hon. Friend did not raise, is something I discussed with the chairman of the Headmasters Conference last year, live on the "Today" programme. I asked him whether he would expect two hypothetical young people of equal ability, one of whom went to an independent school while the other attended the local comprehensive, both to achieve the same A-level grades, or whether he would expect the one who had attended his independent school to achieve better grades. Of course, he dared not say that both would obtain the same grades, because independent schools sell themselves on the basis that young people, of whatever ability, will achieve better grades if they attend an independent school than if they attend a state comprehensive. If that were not the case, few, if any, parents would think it worth while paying the huge fees charged by independent schools. However, if pupils of equal ability achieved better grades at an independent school than at a comprehensive school, the principle that pupils with the greatest potential should be admitted to the best universities could be met only if attention were paid to factors other than A-level grades—in particular, the school they attended. Admitting pupils from comprehensive schools with lower A-level grades than those from independent schools is not only right but necessary if those with the best potential are to obtain the best places.
Mr. Sheerman: Does the hon. Gentleman agree with research by the Sutton Trust suggesting that we need a system of standard assessment tests and more variable ways of assessing students at 18, or any age, before they go into higher education? The A-level is not a good predictor.
Mr. Rendel: It is one predictor and should not be excluded from the means for choosing who has the greatest potential. A SAT system is one of the other ways in which we could make better choices. Interviews are another, and application forms offer another way for admissions tutors to seek out differences between applicants. There are many ways of making those choices and the Minister was right to suggest that a variety was best.
Even Keith Joseph, when he was Secretary of State for Education and Science, recognised that an unfair distribution of educational opportunity was the unacceptable face of the free market. That is why he rejected education vouchers. Today, the Conservatives propose a voucher-type system in higher education, which would inevitably curtail the expansion of the sector to embrace historically under-represented groups.
There is one point on which we agree with the Conservatives: OFFA should go. Our argument, however, is not that all intervention is wrong, rather that it would make much sense for the Higher Education Funding Council to do the job. We supported university access plans because we believe that universities need to
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be held to account for their use of taxpayers' money; the state should not manage admissions, but it should ensure a level playing field.
The Conservatives do not share our views. No surprise there. What is more disappointing is the performance of the Labour party—a party founded in the noble tradition of the struggle for social justice. The Liberal Democrats support widening participation. Ministers deserve congratulation for their commitment to that objective. Our concern is that their policies tend to have the opposite effect. The Minister said in his speech that there was no such research evidence, but the Government's own research for the student income and expenditure survey tells them that. Summarising her findings from the survey, Professor Claire Callender concludes:
"Top-up fees of £3,000 will put even more poor students off university."
There is no question but that fees, particularly top-up fees, are a deterrent and that is particularly true of those who come from poorer backgrounds. It may not be logical, but it is true.
Moreover, the proportion of English school leavers applying to university has fallen in each of the past two years, so there is evidence that people are being put off applying. The Minister said that applications were the important point. Young people are being put off applying to English universities. Six years of tuition fees and the expectation of top-up fees have done nothing for social inclusion.
We must judge the significance of OFFA in this context. The Education supplement of The Guardian reports that Labour MPs feel let down by the pussycat powers of OFFA. Given the late appointment of the director and the time scale involved, the same report points out that
"Offa will have less than a day to go through each institution's"
access plan. But Ministers told us in a document issued during debates on the Bill that OFFA would impose no
"extra monitoring requirements beyond what HEFCE already requires",
"Normally . . . a simple assurance . . . once a year that"
"have satisfied their access agreement obligations, would suffice."
OFFA was never going to have real teeth. It was always going to be a bureaucratic irrelevance. Apart from anything else, it does not have the resources to do the job. The only significance of OFFA lies in what it was designed to conceal. It was designed to pretend to Labour Back Benchers that top-up fees would have no impact on widening participation.
Given this background, there is no shortage of scope for a serious Opposition party to contribute to the debate. What is on offer from the Conservatives? My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) did a wonderful demolition job on Conservative higher education policy in his speech in the House on 14 September. He referred, for example, to the omission of any mention of part-time students from their policy. During the Committee stage of the Higher Education Bill, the hon. Member for
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Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) said:
"Part-time studies . . . do more to widen participation in higher education than anything done in any other part of our higher education system"—[Official Report, Standing Committee H, 2 March 2004; c. 427.]
He was right. Why, then, not a single mention of part-time students in Conservative policy? That puts into perspective their efforts today to claim to defend the disadvantaged student.
The Conservatives' plans are highly regressive. That is the conclusion of, among others, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Higher Education Policy Institute, the National Union of Students, the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education and the Association of University Teachers. Under Conservative policies the poorest 30 per cent. of students would face a 25 per cent. hike in loan repayments, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. If a newly qualified teacher or nurse were to try to repay their loan over five years, that would eat up 30 per cent. of their take-home salary, before rent, fuel and food. A graduate teacher who repaid their loan over 20 years would end up paying back the equivalent of almost two years of total salary.
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