University minister David Willetts has defended the suggestion that university admissions could be liberalised to allow those who can pay fees in full to get university places separately to the usual admissions process.

"There are people who wish to go to university when there aren't enough places," he said.

He explained that extra places could be made available, allowing charities, businesses and private individuals to pay for people who could not get a place through the normal route.

"Anything we did in this would obviously have to be absolutely delivering the coalition's objective of improving social mobility," he told Justin Webb.

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