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Just over 10 years ago, the Government committed to establishing a commission on widening access. To put it simply, we did so because talented students from the most deprived backgrounds were underrepresented in our universities, and we wanted to change that. It was not just a matter of numbers—it was a matter of fairness and the future of our society.

Since then, we have seen record numbers of disadvantaged students reach university, and I think that we should all be incredibly proud of that. Credit for that belongs to our universities, which have made brilliant progress on widening access. I thank colleges for their contribution, too. My regular engagement with universities, including at a round table in January, has only reinforced to me how committed they are—as are we—to building on that progress. Indeed, we do need to build on it.

I am grateful to the committee for providing an opportunity to focus on how we can do that. We all know that we have targets to meet, and that the next interim target in 2026 looks to be challenging. We are at risk of hitting a ceiling due to the single measure of SIMD that is being used. We know that the SIMD can be a blunt tool; our role is to help universities to overcome those challenges, and as part of that, we are progressing work to transition towards individual measures such as free school meals.

We are working to overcome data-sharing barriers, including through using the pilot in the north-east, on which I previously updated the committee. We have also undertaken activity to better understand access for students in remote and rural areas, and we continue to progress efforts to implement the commissioner for fair access’s recommendations, including on changing the institutional SIMD targets.

That work is as much of a priority as it was 10 years ago, and I am committed to going further. Following suggestions from the sector at the recent round table on widening access, I am exploring how we can better reflect the role of part-time study in the widening access targets. A consultation on part-time study is also a valuable step towards widening access, because, by gathering insights into the needs of part-time students, we can better understand the barriers that they face and explore potential solutions. It is therefore my intention to launch a consultation, prior to the summer recess, on part-time study and support for disabled students.

I look forward to hearing the committee’s questions.

I absolutely get the principle of what is being asked. Obviously we see the advantage of having a unique identifier. It would improve our ability to track learners, allowing us to conduct more robust analysis that would help us evaluate our policy decisions; it would help us carry out work to identify access students earlier; and it would make it easier to share data to support learners at key points in their journeys. We absolutely get that, and in principle, we are absolutely in favour of it.

I noticed, in some of the committee’s evidence last week, talk of this being a resourcing or financial issue. Of course, there are resources involved in scoping, establishing and then running such a programme. However, that is not currently the principal barrier. It is not as simple as just introducing a unique identifier; I wish that it were, because I am, in principle, in favour of it.

I make it clear to the committee that, as we work through some of the challenges in this area, we are doing so not because we do not want to implement this measure, but because we want to overcome those challenges. Ultimately, a unique number is a solution, so we are committed to taking it forward. We will work with the commissioner for fair access and with those in the sector, who I know are enthusiastic about it, and see where we can get it to.

My understanding is that it was an underspend of £15 million.

I would expect it to be shared publicly, frankly.

Yes. I am sorry if I picked you up wrongly. You are right. When there is any public financial input to an institution, while respecting its autonomy—I stress, again, the ONS classification’s significance for those relationships—it is right and proper that that financial input is protected.

I am choosing my words carefully because we do not know what the outcome of the internal review will be, but I undertake that, if anything comes out of that or anything else—members will scrutinise the bill that I am referring to and might feel that they want to make changes to it by amendment—we are open to considering what could be done and to using that vehicle to strengthen internal and external oversight of all institutions if that would be in the public interest.

My constituency also has pockets of deprivation: you make a fair point. I cannot stress enough the amount of energy that is being spent and the effort that is being made across the piece to complete the journey in the way that you have articulated.

Let us deal with Corseford first. It was a pilot. When I came into post, we extended the pilot for a period. Unfortunately, up to that point, no formal review of its outcomes had been conducted.

My understanding is that Corseford was designed to provide an educational offering for young disabled people, then a transition to additional educational opportunities further down the line. The analysis of that has not been done; it is currently being done. In the budget, through the conversations with the Liberal Democrats, a sum of money has been identified that, subject to the outcome of the review, will be available for such provision. We need to understand what works at Corseford and what does not. That will help to inform our thinking. You are right that it will feed into the wider piece of work that you mentioned.

Collectively, we need to do better in supporting disabled students. In some instances, it is resource intensive for individual institutions. I am open minded on that, but you will appreciate that we must take the issue forward based on evidence. The review that is being conducted externally will help us to identify what has worked effectively and what might not have worked. That will inform our thinking.

There were two contributory factors to the delay in responding to him last year: the first was the purdah period created by the UK general election, and the second was the parliamentary recess periods. This year, we do not have a UK general election coming up. We anticipate the commissioner’s report in the spring—you say that it will be in March.

None of the measures alone gives us enough refinement or gets us to the target. We are going to have to be very smart about developing a full range of measures to enable, if we can, our reaching the target.

We are not resetting the target—it is in place—but to answer your question I note that we are making sure that, underneath the target, we can look at the country and satisfy ourselves that we are doing a far better job of reaching all the young people who would qualify for admission, rather than, as was alluded to earlier, GCU and UWS admissions making up such a large proportion of the target. They would still make up a large proportion in the target’s delivery, but we need to satisfy ourselves that we are delivering an agenda by which we reach far more young people, particularly in the rural and island areas that we are missing at the moment.

Given the impetus behind this activity—I should add that the commissioner sits on our forum with the universities, and that he advises us—I would look to respond more quickly than we did last year. However, I should also point out that I do not, of course, know what is in his report. I have given you the reasons why last year was different.