No university will have the fees it charges renegotiated, comments by David Barrett of the Office for Fair Access (Offa) revealed.

 Cambridge was one of the first universities to announce plans to charge the full £9,000 fees, sparking a warning from Nick Clegg, the deputy Prime Minister, that "it's not up to them".

Universities were originally expected to have to increase their intake of students from poorer and disadvantaged backgrounds in order to be allowed to charge the full £9,000 fees.

139 institutions had submitted their access agreements to Offa on the 20th April, with over two-thirds of them wishing to charge the full £9,000 for at least some of their courses.

In the access agreement, universities set out the fees they wanted to charge and the access measures they planed to implement in order to sustain or improve student access.

Clegg had said that there would be “real sanctions” for any university that failed to meet its access targets.

However, recent comments from David Barrett, the assistant director of Offa appear to undermine Clegg's warning.

Barrett defended Offa on the grounds that it is “not a fee pricing regulator.”

"We wouldn't fine a university for not making their targets. We would have a conversation with that university about how they use their resources more wisely. It would be a case of trying to improve the next agreement rather than issuing a fine."

Offa is required to ensure that students from lower income backgrounds are not discouraged from accessing higher education. Under the current rules, however, if a university has submitted an acceptable access agreement, Offa cannot stop it from charging the top fees.

Outgoing CUSU Access Officer, Andy McGowan seemed unsurprised by the news, explaining to Varsity that this now made the efforts of current university students even more important.

"Whilst OFFA will clearly need to be speaking to institutions to try and improve elements of access agreements where necessary, this goes to show what we have been saying all along, that OFFA simply lacks the teeth to be able to make any real impact in improving access.

“Over the coming years, students' unions are going to have to step up and play an increasingly prominent role in challenging their institutions on their access targets and pushing them to be sufficiently robust and ambitious.”

A University spokesperson told Varsity, "The University of Cambridge has submitted what it considers to be a realistic achievable and fit-for-purpose Access Agreement."

However, this comment is unlikely to impress. It comes shortly after Cambridge’s report to Offa, which stated an aim merely to maintain its current state school intake, amid concerns it would struggle to increase the intake following the tuition fee increase.