The Educational Backgrounds of Members of Parliament in 2010

Report Overview

Key Findings

School backgrounds of MPs

• Over one third (35%) of MPs elected in the 2010 General Election attended independent schools, which educate just 7% of the school population. The proportion of MPs attending independent schools is 3 percentage points higher than in the previous 2005 Parliament – bucking a trend during recent decades that has seen the
  proportion of privately-schooled MPs gradually fall.
• A major factor behind the increase in the rise is the higher number of Conservative MPs – who are much more likely than their Labour peers to have been privatelyschooled.
• Less than half (43%) of MPs were educated in comprehensive state schools, with the remainder having attended state grammar schools (22%).
• 54% of Conservative MPs attended fee paying schools, compared with 40% of Liberal Democrat MPs, and 15% of Labour MPs.
• There are 20 Etonians in the 2010 Parliament — 5 more than those who served in the 2005 Parliament. Overall 13 schools (12 of which are fee-charging) produce a tenth of all MPs in the new Parliament.
• 35% of newly elected MPs for the 2010 Parliament attended independent schools, the same proportion as MPs who were re-elected.

University backgrounds of MPs

• Nine in ten MPs in 2010 attended university – by far the highest proportion of any Parliament to date. This includes just under three in ten who were educated at either Oxford or Cambridge universities. Oxford has produced 102 MPs serving in the 2010 Parliament.
• 38% of Conservative MPs were educated at Oxford or Cambridge compared with 20% of Labour MPs and 28% of Liberal Democrat MPs.
• Newly elected MPs were even more likely to be graduates – with 94% attending a university, including 69% who had attended a leading research university, and 28% who had attended Oxbridge.