Top Tories line up against Theresa May over PM’s planned grammar school revolution
Former Education Secretarues Ken Clarke and Nicky Morgan warn MPs need reassurance that pupils would benefit from proposals
AN array of top Tories lined up against Theresa May yesterday as her plans for a grammar schools revolution were published.
Former Education Secretaries Ken Clarke and Nicky Morgan both warned that MPs needed reassurance all pupils would benefit from the proposals.
Big beast Clarke urged Mrs May to rethink scrapping the faith schools admissions cap while Mrs Morgan said she would find it “difficult” to back the proposals as they stand.
Ex Northern Ireland minister Theresa Villiers voiced her “anxiety” over the plans and former Business Minister Anna Soubry declared her constituency had “no desire” for selection in schools.
It came as senior Tory MP Keith Simpson said he had “severe reservations” about grammar schools with fellow Tories Alex Shelbrooke and Michelle Donelan stating worries children would be “stigmatised”.
But the PM got respite after Michael Gove – another ex Education Secretary – voiced his support for her plans.
Current Education Secretary Justine Greening insisted selective schools could boost results for all pupils as she laid out plans to MPs.
She said she would “very much like to see some of the most disadvantaged communities in our country perhaps get the chance now to have a grammar”.
But Neil Carmichael, the Tory chairman of the education select committee, insisted the proposals must “reach every child”.
Speaking last night, Mrs Morgan said the Government has “a real challenge on its hands getting this through”.
She said: “I think you can see just from the questions on the government benches that colleagues were looking for a lot of reassurances and I’ve a lot of emails from the public at the weekend so clearly there’s a lot of people out there who question how these proposals are going to continue to build the strong education system we all want.”
Tory former chancellor Ken Clarke asked Ms Greening to reconsider removing the cap on requiring oversubscribed faith schools to make half of places available to children from other religious communities.
He said: “If it has been imperfect we do need to know why it has not worked and it may be right to modify it but isn’t just removing this cap altogether going to lead us into very considerable danger?”