Schools minister Nick Gibb has defended the government’s “eleventh-hour” decision to allow mock exam results to be used for official A-level and GCSE grades.

He said that in making changes to the exam system in England, the government had looked at what had happened in Scotland, where the ministers yesterday U-turned over grades calculated following the coronavirus cancellation of exams.

“We did look at what happened in Scotland. We were worried about that. We are not changing the fundamental system here as they are in Scotland,” he told BBC Breakfast this morning.

But he insisted that the system was not in “confusion” and refused to apologise for the late changes.

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“There is no confusion. We have been very clear from the very beginning. We had to have a system in place to award qualifications to young people given that we had cancelled the exams,” he said.

“With the best model in the world, there will be students who fall outside it. We didn’t want any students to suffer disadvantage.

“We apologise to nobody for finding solutions - even at the eleventh hour - to stop any student being disadvantaged by this system.”

Mr Gibb said only a small number would be affected by the move, which was designed as a “safety net” to ensure that no students were disadvantaged by the system for assessing their grades following the cancelling of exams.

“It is just making sure at the edges that no student is disadvantaged. This is just to give a safety net for any student who might fall through the system,” he told Sky News.

“It will only affect a small group of people. Most young people tomorrow will get the grade that the teacher sent into the exam board that they thought they would get.”

He added that he believed that the system for assessing A-level and GCSE results remained “robust” following the latest government changes.

“I am confident that we have a system in place now that is fair and robust and will enable young people to go on to the next phase of their lives,” he told Sky News.

“It is a system that is in place that will not lead to inflation to our grade system, so young people can be proud of the qualifications they get tomorrow.”

In comments to Times Radio, Mr Gibb said mocks would have to have been sat under proper exam conditions if they are to be used to provide a final grade.

He said: “This is something that the regulator Ofqual will have more to say about later, but it does need to be a mock that is sat under exam conditions.”

“That’s why the appeal comes from the school - they will have to certify that this was sat under exam conditions and so on.”