No veto for Yorkshire Labour councils on grammar schools

Schools Minister Nick Gibb told The Yorkshire Post local authorities will not have a “veto” over any plans to open grammar schools in their areas.

Education Secretary Justine Greening yesterday told the Conservative Party conference that areas which do not want grammar schools will not be forced to have them.

But Mr Gibb insisted that would not mean Labour councils in Yorkshire would be allowed to block them.

He said: “If no-one in an area, if there’s no parental demand for it then there will be no schemes.”

Mr Gibb said the process for establishing new selective schools would be similar to that for free schools where the project’s backers have to show the local community wants more school choice.

He said: “This whole proposal isn’t going back to a binary system it’s not saying one in four schools shall be a grammar school.

“It is very permissive, we are getting rid of the ban [on new selective schools] and it’s allowing some flexibility in the system building on six years of school improvement in the comprehensive system.”

Asked if the Government would allow Labour-run councils in Yorkshire, who have widely objected to the grammar school plans, to block the new schools, he said: “No we’re not. Local authorities won’t have a veto.”

Ms Greening used her conference speech to defend the Conservatives plans to bring back selection in schools.

“We talk about postcode lotteries. But unless you can afford to move to the right area, education has been the ultimate postcode lottery,” she said.

Grammar schools have a track record of closing the attainment gap between children on free school meals and their better off classmates.

“That’s because in grammars, those children on free school meals progress twice as fast as the other children, so the gap disappears.

“And 99 per cent of grammars schools are rated good or outstanding.

“But in spite of this, Labour’s approach to grammars is: close these schools down.”

Ms Greening announced Scarborough will be one of the first areas targeted by a new £60m drive to help disadvantaged children.

The Government will set up ‘new opportunity areas’ which will receive extra money to improve school standards along with a raft of other measures including better careers advice, access to work experience and more apprenticeship opportunities to raise pupils’ aspirations.

The areas chosen were identified as having poor levels of social mobility in a report from a commission led by former Labour health secretary Alan Milburn.

Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner said: “Any new investment into disadvantaged communities is welcome, but the truth is that grammar schools fail the vast majority of children.

“The Tories cannot provide any evidence that new grammar schools will aid social mobility for children from the most disadvantaged communities.”

Helen Barnard, head of analysis at the York-baed Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: “Improving life in these ten ‘social mobility hotspots’ is an important goal, but poverty affects every region in the country and costs the UK £78 billion every year.”

Ms Barnard call for the ‘new opportunity areas’ to become “trailblazers” for a new approach to tackling poverty.