Image caption Ms Nandy was leading a backbench debate on grammar schools

The government's plans for new grammar schools in England are based on "flimsy evidence", a former Labour shadow education minister has said.

Lisa Nandy said plans for new selective schools were a "particularly backwards looking approach".

She said it was "pitiful" that ministers appeared to have given up hope of making every school a good one.

But Education Minister Nick Gibb said the government was committed to improving standards for all students.

Announced in September, the proposals to allow new grammar schools have prompted strong criticism from politicians and the teaching profession.

'Backwards looking'

Leading a backbench debate on the issue in the Commons on Tuesday, Ms Nandy said: "The idea that in 2016 in Britain that we are better off as a country, or that any child is better off by being segregated and branded a failure at the age of 11 seems to me to be a particularly backwards looking approach."

"This government appears to be set on a path that will pit children against one another, and make losers of all of us."

Ms Nandy cited a whole range of studies and statistics that questioned the benefits of selective education.

She said the plans, set out in a consultation document, were based on "precisely no evidence".

MPs heard that grammar schools were under-represented at Oxford and Cambridge universities, given their selective intake, and grammars did not increase the number of high achieving students.

But Mr Gibb told MPs there was evidence that the grades of children in selective areas who did not get into grammar schools fell by only a fraction of a grade.

He said: "What this consultation document seeks to do is to find a solution to that problem, by requiring all new grammar schools that are established, all grammar schools that want to expand, to help raise the academic standards in those non-selective schools in those areas."

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The proposed expansion of grammar schools is controversial

Ms Nandy responded by saying no other countries were pursuing selective education and that good comprehensive schools deserved just as much praise from the government.

There were also concerns about the increased cost of school transport, given children would travel from further afield, as well as the lack of funding among local authorities to implement the plans.

"The answer to his problem is surely to make every school a good school. The fact the government appears to have completely given up on this, in 2016 in Britain, is pitiful for young people in this country," she said.

Tory concerns

Neil Carmichael, the Conservative chairman of the Commons Education Committee, described the grammar school plans as a "distraction".

He said other education issues, such as fairer funding and support for primary school pupils making the transition to secondary school, needed greater attention.

"I do think that we have to focus on what matters and therefore I repeat this issue about grammar schools is something of a distraction," Mr Carmichael said.

"The question we have got to ask ourselves all of the time is what about all of the other schools? That's actually at the heart of this matter because we do have 3,500 secondary schools.

"The question is what do we do about the 3,400 or so schools which we do depend on for the vast majority of our teaching."

Concerns have been expressed about pupils from wealthier families receiving private tutoring in order to pass exams to get into a grammar school.

"The evidence suggests it would be extremely difficult to create a tutor-proof test," Mr Carmichael said.

Labour's former shadow education secretary Lucy Powell also criticised the plans.

"I can't quite believe that in 2016 Britain we are seriously contemplating a return to selection at 11, given all the progress that we have made in education over the last 20 years," she said.

"What a damning verdict of our country if we went back to an era where we told four in every five children at the age of 11 that there was a cap on their potential and it was only the grammar school kids who could get far."