Leonard in class war on private schooling

THE Scots Labour leadership frontrunner will wage war with private schools, demanding they are stripped of charitable status and stop giving free places to poorer children.

Richard Leonard, who was handed a bursary to attend a top independent school, believes future children should not have the same opportunity.

He insists access to top quality teaching facilities was ‘not necessarily a benefit’ and access to education should be equal.

Independent schools offer bursaries to bright children from poor backgrounds to help secure charitable status and tax breaks. Stripping the schools of that status would signal an end to bursaries.

Mr Leonard, who attended Pocklington School near York, where fees now reach £27,528 a year, said it was time for a ‘socialist’ approach to Scottish education.

Speaking at a recent leadership hustings, he said: ‘It should be comprehensive, non-selective, based on equality of opportunity, lifelong access, compulsory education, which is free, within a local democratic framework.’

The Conservatives claimed appointing Mr Leonard as leader would see Scottish Labour lurch to the left. Tory MSP Miles Briggs said: ‘Far from representing the many, he has consistently sided with the extreme few... he would take Labour off to the extremes.’