Children being sent to school unable to speak in sentences is a “persistent scandal”, the Education Secretary is to tell parents.

In his first major speech on social mobility, Damian Hinds will promise to tackle the "last taboo" in education by highlighting the fact that many mothers and fathers are failing to teach their children how to talk.

Speaking at the Resolution Foundation in Westminster on Tuesday, he will say that he has no desire to “lecture” parents about how to raise their children.

But he will warn that children who start school at age four behind their peers rarely catch up and instead “the gap just widens”.