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Michael Gove has admitted it was a mistake to cancel the Building Schools for the Future programme.

He told the BBC's Andrew Marr it wasn't wrong for the government to try and save money, but that it was done in a "crass and insensitive way".

Mr Gove cancelled Labour ’s £55 billion school building programme just months after taking office as Tory Education Secretary in 2010.

Nearly six out of ten of the schools which saw savage cuts to funding for building and refurbishment were in Labour constituencies.

At the same time, Mr Gove pressed ahead with plans to pump money in to his pet Free Schools project.

Mr Marr asked him what mistakes he had made as a minister which he hadn't yet admitted to.

Mr Gove said: "One I do 'fess up to, which happened fairly early on when I was Education Secretary was cancelling Building Schools for the Future. It was not so much that it was wrong to try to save public money. It was done in a crass and insensitive way. It taught me a lesson."

He went on: "David Davies came up to me at the end of what turned out to be a very bruising experience for me in the House of Commons and he said said, 'well, you...' and he used an Anglo Saxon phrase. 'you -'ed up'.

"'But you will be a better minister for this, because you learn from your mistakes.'"