Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 2:30 pm on 2 September 2025.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson (Cabinet Office)
2:30,
2 September 2025
My Lords, I welcome the Minister reminding us that the original scheme had a diversity element, which was abolished by the Conservative Government in 2023 in a rather Trumpian attack on the whole idea of diversity. Does the Minister recall that when Oxford and Cambridge introduced similar diversity schemes for children from deprived backgrounds in poorer state schools there was an enormous amount of criticism? I was on the staff of Oxford University at the time and remember being almost physically assaulted. After 30 years, these are widely accepted to have brought a number of extremely bright children from poor backgrounds up into very successful academic, administrative and other careers, and I think this scheme is likely to have the same sort of effect.
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