I propose to take Questions Nos. 454 and 455 together.
Up until recently, the HEA collected data on the socioeconomic background of students through the Equal Access Survey, which is an annual voluntary set of questions asked of all first-year undergraduate new entrant students to HEA funded higher education institutions.
Since 2017/18, the use of Deprivation Index Scores (DIS) has replaced the survey data as a socioeconomic measure. The National Access Plan for Equity of Access to Higher Education 2015-2021 set participation targets of 30% for the non-manual worker group and 35% for semi/unskilled manual worker group by 2019 and, following a publication of a Progress Review of the NAP in 2018, targets of 32% and 40% respectively were set for these groups for 2021. However, due to the need for census data and the change in data collection, participation rates are only available for 2016/17 which show that 27% of the non-manual worker group, and 36% of the semi/unskilled manual worker group, participated in higher education.