Labour will oppose this regressive Tory education policy every step of the way - Ashworth

[labourpress]

Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s Shadow Minister without Portfolio, in response to Theresa May’s speech today, said:

“It’s utterly ludicrous for Theresa May to stand up and talk about creating a "great meritocracy” and then in the next breathe announce a return to grammar schools.

“The Prime Minister can talk all she wants about delivering for everyone but what matters is what she does, and her actions reveal the Tories’ true colours: working in the interests of the few while everyone else is left behind.

"Grammar schools won’t improve the lives of the many; they offer nothing to help hundreds of thousands of our children who deserve the best start in life. In returning to this failed project Theresa May is shifting the Tories even further from the interests of ordinary people, further that even David Cameron who said that rejecting the stale old grammars debate was a "key test” of whether the Tories were fit for government.

“What’s more for Theresa May to claim her Government will represent ordinary working class people beggars belief when yesterday we learnt that the number of people on zero hours contracts has increased by 20 per cent in a year; when real wages are 10 per cent lower than in 2007 and 1 in 5 employees in Britain are stuck in low paid jobs.

"Labour wants the best for all our children, not just the lucky few the Tories care about. That’s why we’re today calling on the Prime Minister to come to Parliament on Monday and explain why, when these policies weren’t even in the Conservative Manifesto, she is now set to press ahead with a policy which is bad for the majority of our children.

"With class sizes soaring, unqualified teachers in our schools and tuition fees going up again there’s no shortage of problems in education for the Prime Minister to have given a speech on, that she’s chosen to focus on this old, discredited policy shows exactly how she intends to govern: for the few.

"Labour is committed to an education system for everyone, not just a select few, and we will be opposing this regressive policy every step of the way.”