A THIRD of the new parliament was privately educated, and on the Labour benches the proportion has risen.

A new Sutton Trust report reveals that 48 per cent of Conservative MPs were privately educated, down from 54 per cent in the last parliament.

The paper, titled Parliamentary Privilege, notes that 14 per cent of Liberal Democrats were charged fees for their education, along with 5 per cent of the SNP’s buoyed numbers.

Among the Labour Party, the figure has increased from 15 per cent to 17 per cent, demonstrating the party’s continued dearth of working-class candidates in spite of recent efforts to reverse the trend of decline.

The figures mean that MPs are four times as likely to be privately educated as the general public.

And a shocking one in 10 of those went to Britain’s most exclusive public school Eton.

Sutton Trust chief executive Lee Elliot Major said: “The make-up of the House of Commons may have changed a lot this week but the members of the new house show little change from those who preceded them in one significant respect — where they went to school and university.

“If Parliament is truly to represent the whole nation, the best people should be able to become MPs, regardless of social background.

“Today’s figures remind us how important it is that we do more to increase levels of social mobility and make sure that bright young people from low- and middle-income backgrounds have access to the best schools and the best universities.”