Patten calls for Oxford to uphold standards

As Oxford University launches its biggest fund-raising campaign to date – as reported in The First Post yesterday, it is hoping to raise £1.25bn so it can compete with American colleges like Harvard and Yale - Lord Patten (pictured), the former Tory minister, has attacked the government's ongoing policy to push educationally deprived teenagers into higher education, and especially Oxford, where he is Chancellor.

"We can't in higher education mend these problems by lowering our standards," he said. "We have to maintain our standards and hope that we will get more young people with the right qualifications applying to Oxford. If you've only got a third or 40 per cent of young people staying on at school past 16 in some areas, it's very difficult for universities to broaden access. Poverty of aspiration is a real challenge."

Patten's remarks are likely to enrage Gordon Brown, who famously spoke out against Oxford after it turned down Laura Spence, a straight-A student, for a medicine degree - an attack that Patten called a "high-water mark in idiocy".