England faces primary schools places crisis as 10,000 pupils could be without a place within three years
Labour has been told 'go back to school' after it said the figure could be as high as 85,000
TEN thousand new primary school pupils could be left without a place within three years, it has emerged.
The deficit will be felt across 12 councils by the start of the 2019/20 school year, research shows.
Labour were accused of scaremongering by suggesting the figure could be as high as 85,000 across 63 local authorities.
However, across England there are expected to be 200,000 more places than pupils by the end of the Parliament.
Schools Minister Nick Gibb said: “Labour’s flawed figures are already unravelling. They’ve either made a fundamental miscalculation or they’ve been caught out trying to be deliberately misleading.”
Nick Timothy, Director of the New Schools Network, ordered shadow Education Secretary Lucy Powell “to go back to school” after declaring Labour’s sums as “wrong”.
He said: “England needs 10,000 extra places by 2019/20 - a target that can be met comfortably by opening new free schools.”