Get schools open or go, Williamson told

GAVIN Williamson has been warned that schools must reopen smoothly in September – or he must go.

Government sources have indicated that Boris Johnson will not sack the Education Secretary, or demote him in a major reshuffle.

But senior backbenchers have told the whips’ office in private that Mr Williamson should be sacked following the exams fiasco.

It came as Mr Johnson’s lead fell to its lowest level since he became Prime Minister.

A YouGov poll for The Times found that support for the Conservatives has dropped four points to 40 per cent, while Labour has gained three points to 38 per cent in a week.

Tory MPs have warned that a failure to get all pupils back to school next month would represent ‘the final straw’ for Mr Williamson. One senior Tory said: ‘Gavin’s position is completely untenable and we need strong leadership in September, which he is singularly incapable of.’

Mr Williamson was also forced to bow to pressure and back Ofqual for the first time after being accused of playing a blame game.

He admitted that it was the regulator’s decision to abandon the grades determined by an algorithm and move to teacher assessments. The Department for Education said: ‘The decision [Ofqual] took to move from moderated grades to centre-assessed grades was one that we agreed with. Our focus remains on working with Ofqual to ensure students receive their final GCSE, ASlevel and A-level results this week so that they can move on to the next stage of their lives.’

The admission will raise further questions over whether Mr Williamson was unaware of the scale of the problem or how the controversial algorithm would even work until the weekend.

Tory MPs have made representations to the whips’ office that Mr Williamson should leave his post now.

Tobias Ellwood, the defence committee chairman, said the Government should ‘reconfigure’ its top team and harness the ‘full talent’ available. And a former minister said: ‘There’s genuine anger now about how somebody like Gavin got [the job] in the first place.

‘There are questions of judgment about why Theresa May and then Boris Johnson promoted him. Somebody with more competence in the same job could’ve avoided all this.’