PM’S grammar school plans to be reduced to ‘modest’ pilot
May’s schools reform among policies at risk in Queen’s Speech, says head of Tories’ MPS committee
THERESA MAY’S plans for a new generation of grammar schools are likely to be reduced to a “rather modest pilot” after she failed to secure a significant majority, one of the policy’s biggest champions has said.
Graham Brady, chairman of the influential 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, said Mrs May could be forced to abandon her manifesto pledge to lift the ban on new selective schools.
It is one of a number of policies likely to be dropped to ensure that the Queen’s speech, which is published next week, gets through Parliament and Mrs May can form a government.
She is also likely to abandon “poisonous” commitments such as the socalled “dementia tax”, and scrap the triple lock on state pensions and meanstesting of winter fuel payments.
Mr Brady told BBC Two’s Sunday Politics: “There’s no point sailing ahead with items that were in the manifesto which we won’t get through Parliament. No doubt it will be a slimmed down Queen’s Speech and we should concentrate on the things that really have to be done. I would be upset if we couldn’t make any progress on allowing people to have the choice of grammar schools but reality asserts itself.”
He said a “rather modest” pilot in which a few grammar schools are opened in inner-city areas could be all that is achievable on one of the Conservatives’ flagship education policies.
Mr Brady also suggested Mrs May should try to be more like Jeremy Corbyn, saying the Labour leader had presented himself in an “avuncular” way. The Prime Minister will also have to compromise on her plans to overhaul social care, which were credited with costing her an outright majority and described as “arsenic” on the doorstep.
The manifesto abandoned plans for a cap on social care costs, a move which attracted a backlash amid concerns that people with long-term conditions would face massive care bills.
The Prime Minister performed an about-turn in the middle of the election campaign, clarifying that the Tories would commit to a cap on social care. The level at which the cap falls will be a subject of huge debate in the party.
Mrs May’s alliance with the Democratic Unionist Party is likely to force her to abandon plans to means-test the winter fuel allowance. Tory backbenchers want her to scrap the plans or make clear the threshold for the means test will be applied at a higher level.
The Prime Minister also unveiled plans in the manifesto to abandon the triple lock, under which the state pension rises in line with either wages, inflation or earnings, whichever is highest. The DUP pledged to keep the policy in its manifesto.
John Mcdonnell, the shadow chancellor, said Labour would table an amendment to the Queen’s Speech in an attempt to vote it down and stop Mrs May forming a government.
“On winter fuel allowance, for example, we think there’s a majority in Parliament, even within the Conservative Party of quite a few Conservative MPS who’ll say this is unacceptable, triple lock exactly same,” he said.