OXFORD University would not last night dismiss claims by Vince Cable that it would have gone private if the Government had not decided to lift the cap on tuition fees.

On Monday night, Business Secretary Dr Cable said that one of the reasons the Government had proposed charging students more for degree courses was to stop the country’s elite universities from turning private.

The Liberal Democrat MP told the Girls’ School Association annual conference in Manchester: “One of the reasons were are doing this is precisely to head off Oxford, Cambridge, London School of Economics, University College London and a few others from going private, because if we had not opened up the system in the way we have, they would have had a very strong incentive to do so.”

University spokesman Ruth Collier said: “It’s a hypothetical situation at the moment and we’re not prepared to answer hypothetical questions.

“Oxford feels it has a national role to play and to refuse state funding for teaching isn’t something that’s being discussed. We put enormous amounts of our money into the teaching system and we will continue to do so in any future funding situation.”