Private schools offering lavish extracurricular activities give their pupils an unfair advantage and should be forced to share their facilities with state pupils, says a report commissioned by the prime minister.
Former cabinet minister Alan Milburn was asked to look at how class barriers could be broken down in Britain and found that middle-class children whose parents do not move in the "right" circles, as well as those from poorer families, now risk being shut out of professions that have become more socially exclusive.
Milburn says that fee-paying pupils benefit from an emphasis on "soft skills" such as teamwork and communication, which are imparted through sport, music and drama. With more pupils now getting the academic grades needed for university, private pupils get ahead because of their more rounded CVs and confident presentation.
The report calls on the Charity Commission to force schools to share extracurricular activities with state school pupils as a condition of maintaining their charitable status, and for Ofsted to inspect state schools on their provision of extras such as music and drama to ensure they become a priority.
Milburn is also expected to back an extension of university schemes offering students from poor backgrounds places on lower grades than more privileged children, and to attack poor careers advice in state schools.
Writing in the Observer today, Milburn argues that there is a "chasm between where we are and where we need to be" to reap the benefits of new professional jobs emerging from the recession, with research suggesting they may account for nine in 10 of new vacancies created.
His report will warn of a growing culture of unpaid, unadvertised internships now increasingly required to get into competitive fields which is excluding even relatively well-off children if their parents lack the social connections to secure them.
Milburn's findings will be controversial in some parts of government, reawakening divisions over how to present a planned election crusade to reduce class divides. It will be seen as reinforcing the argument from John Denham, the new communities secretary, earlier this month that Labour must not become merely a party of the poor.