The Committee ended up accepting that "may" meant "shall" except when it meant "may" and the Minister persuaded the Committee of the Government's view that with regard to education records the Education Act 1980 provided sufficient powers. I should like to raise a further point in that regard. If the Minister cannot answer it today, perhaps he will be kind enough to do so at a later stage.

The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) and I received an intriguing letter from the Universities Central Council on Admissions, known to generations of parents as UCCA, expressing the view that it would be regrettable if the Bill allowed access to the reports prepared by head teachers and used by those making university selections. In an astonishing letter, Mr. Philip Oakley, general secretary of UCCA, stated: Most university selectors when consulted on this matter said they would have grave reservations about the substitution of open testimonials for confidential reports. No one was talking about testimonials, open or closed. We were merely hoping that the judgments made about admissions to universities would be factually based opinions and statements of fact. I appreciate that, within that, assessments must inevitably be made, but supporters of the Bill maintain that such judgments and assessments must be based on something more substantial than hunches, so that people can see why a particular conclusion has been reached.

The letter continues: They fear that such testimonials would lose the benefit of the frank, careful, sympathetic advice on each candidate based on detailed knowledge of his or her school record". That is an astonishing statement. I do not necessarily complain about UCCA, but I must point out that in trying to find out the address of that establishment I noticed from the letter that it operated from behind a box number, which spoke volumes about the view that it was expressing. To be fair, UCCA explained in a subsequent letter that it used different box numbers for different parts of its operation because it helped with the handling of mail. Superficially, however, it seemed highly appropriate in the light of the views that it had expressed.

I should be grateful if the Minister would bear that in mind, because under the original phrasing of the Bill it does not necessarily appear that those records would come within its provisions. If someone is between educational establishments, for example, finishing at a comprehensive school and applying for a place at a university or a college, that person is not, at that stage, in full-time education, in that he or she has finished at one place and has not received a decision whether he or she can go on to university or college. It seems to me — I hope that I carry the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire with me — that it would be quite ludicrous if such records, prepared by headmasters, were excluded from the regulations that will be made in due course. It would be even better if, when preparing those reports to back up applications for university places, headmasters or senior school staff discussed them with the people concerned, before sending off the records.