Labour Has Betrayed The Working Class Over Higher Education

I have blogged many times about Labour's betrayal of the working class. It is shameful that a Labour Government has presided over rising unemployment; over 1 million young people not being in employment, education or training; rising poverty; falling social mobility; and widening inequality. The Labour Party that has presided over this mess certainly isn't the Labour movement I was brought up with.

This betrayal of hard working people is evident if you look at the Government's terrible record regarding getting more people from underpriveleged backgrounds into Higher Education. Just consider a few factors:

• The Government says that it wants 50% of young people to go to University. That figure stands at 40% at the moment, some ten years after the Government made 50% their target;
• In the ten per cent most deprived neighbourhoods, only 30% of young people go to University, compared to 60% in the twenty per cent least deprived neighbourhoods;
• Sutton Trust research has shown that 40% of university scholars went to private school. Only 7% of children are educated privately;
• One third of students from top ranked universities went to private schools. Only 7% of children go to private school;
• In 2005, the probability of going to university for the top two social classes was 78% - the same figure as in 1948. According to the Times Higher Education, "for the bottom social class, it was 13 per cent, 1 per cent lower than in Clement Attlee's Britain."
• The Government's limit on university numbers, meaning well over 100,000 university applicants have been left without a place has impacted working class people in particular.
• The student finance fiasco of this summwer has meant that over 150,000 students, predominantly from lower socio-economic backgrounds have had to start university in a state of financial crisis.

Lets be clear about this. The Government have totally failed to widen participation in university. And widening participation is absolutely what needs to happen. In too many cases, universities represent finishing schools for the middle class. We must do all that we can to broaden the social base of Higher Education, to ensure aa boost in social mobility. That must be a national priority.

That is why I support real action, rather than talk, to widen participation. That is why I support the plan, set out at last week's Conservative conference to create an extra 10,000 university places.