Nick Gibb has been given an expanded ministerial brief as the Minister of State for School Standards following a Department for Education (DfE) reshuffle.
Potential plans to lift the ban on opening new grammar schools in England are likely to face cross party opposition in both the House of Lords and the House of Commons.
Trustees at St Bees School say there are three possibilities that could reopen the independent school which controversially closed in July last year, after 432 years.
Just over half of English 18 year-olds applying to go to university missed their predicted A-level grades by two or more grades, according to analysis from UCAS.
The gap between the number of pupils who attended independent schools going to University compared with their state school peers has widened, according to government figures.