Liz Truss’s plan to lift the ban on new grammar schools looks dead in the water after the new education secretary said she was focused on pupils in “comprehensive education”.
Gillian Keegan’s predecessor Kit Malthouse had been asked by the ex-prime minister to draw up plans for new grammar schools in England.
Asked about the policy on Nick Robinson’s Political Thinking podcast, new education secretary Gillian Keegan said “we’ve got to focus on the 90-odd per cent who don’t get to go”.
“The thing about grammar schools is 90-odd per cent of kids just never get to go to one. There was no grammar school anywhere near Knowsley [where she went to school]. Someone will find one now, but I didn’t know about it if it existed.
