Frances Perraudin features Sutton Trust research in a Guardian article on the background of MPs.

Almost a third of new parliamentary candidates with a reasonable chance of winning seats in the general election were privately educated and one in five attended either Oxford or Cambridge universities, according to research published on Thursday.

A report from the educational charity the Sutton Trust, Parliamentary Privilege, analyses the backgrounds of those likely to become members of parliament for the first time in May’s general election and finds they are “unlikely to reflect any more social diversity than the current crop of MPs”.

The educational backgrounds varied across the political parties, but none was close to the national average. Of the likely new MPs, 31% attended private schools, compared with 7% of the adult population, and 19% attended either Oxford or Cambridge universities, compared with 1% of the adult population.

Read the full article here.

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