MP: Poor areas need grammars

REMOVING a ban on creating new grammar schools would end the ‘geographic sweepstake’ in education quality, a Red Wall Conservative MP has claimed.

Jonathan Gullis, a former teacher, has launched a campaign to scrap the ban so that poorer areas can benefit.

There are no grammars in the North East and almost half of the 163 in the UK are in London and the South East.

Mr Gullis, the MP for Stoke-on-Trent North, said: ‘We can level up the country by offering students in the most deprived constituencies the same choice in education as the least deprived.’

The ban was brought in by Tony Blair in 1998. It is understood that most Tory MPs want to scrap it. But the Department for Education said there were no such plans.