Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he plans to give higher education providers access to free school meals data to fulfill his request that universities focus their access and participation work on white boys on free schools meals as set out in his Strategic Guidance letter to the Office for Students on 5 February 2021.

The government is committed to transforming the lives of young people, so they can go as far as their hard work and talent will take them, regardless of their background or where they live. It is more crucial than ever before that we tap into the brilliant talent that our country has to offer, and make sure that university places are available to all who are qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and who wish to do so.

All higher education (HE) providers wanting to charge higher level fees must also have an Access and Participation Plan agreed by the Office for Students (OfS), in which they set out the measures they intend to take to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds and under-represented groups to access and succeed in HE.

Through our recent guidance letter to the OfS, we have asked that their work to improve access and participation in HE should include a focus on white working-class boys who are currently the least likely group to progress to HE.

Departmental officials are working closely with the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) to explore how we can support HE providers to improve and enhance access to data collected by the Department, including free school meals (FSM) data. We recently gave approval to UCAS to incorporate FSM data into their multiple equality measure for the 2021 HE admissions cycle, which UCAS will make available to HE providers as part of their modernised contextual data service. My officials are continuing to work with UCAS to consider the changes required to their processes to enable the lawful sharing of FSM data directly with HE providers.