THE Conservatives revealed plans yesterday to allow parents to use state funds to set up new schools or take over existing ones under private, charitable or community management.
Damian Green, the Shadow Education Secretary, likened the policy to Margaret Thatcher’s legislation to allow tenants to buy their council houses and said that it would transform the education system.
He told the Conservative conference in Blackpool that it would lead to more grammar schools opening for the first time in a generation.
The right to set up a school would be open to all parents in England, although initially it would be aimed at inner-city schools where problems were more acute, he said.
It would cost £400 million a year in current and capital spending in