White working class pupils’ underachievement at school is to be the subject of a new inquiry, as the education select committee chair denies that concentrating on the plight of white children is “racist”.

The inquiry will consider the extent to which white working class students fall behind and will recommend ways in which ministers should tackle the issue.

Robert Halfon, a Conservative MP and chair of the education select committee, said he finds it “bizarre” that he has been accused of being racist for highlighting the issue.

"The whole premise of the committee is to look at left behind cohorts, those who are falling way behind,” he said. “One of those groups sadly is white working class pupils from poor background, and within that group, boys do worse than girls.

“I have been accused of racism, which I find really hard to fathom. Other ethnic groups are outperforming white, so I can’t see why this is racist.”

Mr Halfon said that people should not be so “blinkered”, adding that the statistics on underachievement of poor white students are “there for all to see”.

White pupils are typically the least likely to achieve their potential between primary and secondary school, according to official progress measures used by the Department for Education.

White pupils are also the least likely to enter for traditional GCSE subjects that count towards the English Baccalaureate award.

Just 37.5 per cent of white teenagers enter for the award, the lowest proportion of all ethnic groups. In order to obtain the award, students must obtain five A*-C or numeric grades 9-4 in maths, English, science, history or geography, and a modern language.

The chief inspector of schools has previously said that children from white working class families can the "lack the aspiration and drive" of migrant communities.

Amanda Spielman explained that society has to “grapple with the unhappy fact that many local working class communities have felt the full brunt of economic dislocation in recent years”.

Black and Asian parents are more ambitious in their attempts to get their children into good schools, a Cambridge University study published last year found.

Only a minority of parents (39 per cent) choose their local school as their first option, the research showed, with white families more likely to put their local school as their top choice even if it is not particularly good.

Meanwhile, Black or Asian children, or those who speak English as a second language, are on average more likely to apply to schools that are further away from where they live but have perform better academically.

The education select committee’s inquiry will examine which factors contribute to the underachievement of white working class students, such as the availability of places at good nurseries, the impact of role models and home life.

It is the first in a series of inquiries that the education select committee plan to launch into “left behind” groups which will also include children from Roma communities, those with special needs and those who have grown up in care homes.