Universities should be able to offer places to state school students with lower A Level grades than their privately educated rivals, the government's admissions taskforce has said.

Admissions tutors should "vary the weight they give" to exam results and take factors from a candidate's background into account, according to the taskforce led by Professor Steven Schwartz, the vice-chancellor of Brunel University.

But the report also concluded that there was "no evidence" of bias in admissions against particular groups.

And it added that there should be no policy of automatically offering places to pupils from state schools with lower grade requirements.