Winterton: The whole process has become discredited
Shadow leader of the Commons Rosie Winterton comments on Gove’s mistake:
“The Monkseaton High School in Tynemouth, which was listed as being cancelled, and in fact opened last year, was visited by [David Cameron], where he launched the Conservative local election campaign.
“This is completely chaotic and suggests a hurried and unreliable process.
“Will the leader of the House ask the secretary of state at the minimum to produce the criteria used to decide which school building projects will be cancelled so that parents and teachers can see for themselves whether their school building programme has been cancelled by any kind of reasonable and fair process?
“The fact is the education secretary should surely withdraw the list altogether and think again about destroying the hopes and aspirations of at least 700 communities around the country.
“Surely it is obvious that this whole process has become discredited, as has the education secretary himself, not least because he keeps telling the House that funding has not been agreed for these schools, and he continued to say that in this House even after the permanent secretary issued a letter saying that was categorically not the case.”
