Nick Clegg urges ministers to ‘stop this fetish with grammar schools’ Nick Clegg warned ministers to abandon their “fetish with selection” in schools as he launched an attack against Theresa May’s […]

Nick Clegg warned ministers to abandon their “fetish with selection” in schools as he launched an attack against Theresa May’s plans to expand the number of grammar schools.

The former Deputy Prime Minister had joined forces with Nicky Morgan, who served as Education Secretary between 2014 and 2016, to warn the Government about the damage that increasing selection in schools would have.

Speaking in a debate on social mobility in the House of Commons, the former Liberal Democrat leader said: “I urge the minister…to speak to the secretary of state and the powers that be in Whitehall to stop this fetish with selection before it gets this Government into terrible trouble”.

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‘Parents hate grammars’

Mr Clegg had come together with Ms Morgan to form a cross-party alliance with Labour MP Lucy Powell, who had served as shadow Education Secretary, to oppose the Prime Minister’s flagship domestic policy.

In an impassioned speech he branded the move to increase the number of grammar schools as being backed by “no evidence nationally or internationally”.

And he said that if ministers were going to ignore evidence, then they should pay attention to the political argument.

“[Selection] is not actually popular with parents,” he said. “If you look at opinion polls, older voters like it but parents who actually have to make invidious choices about where to send their children hate it.”

His comments came after Ms Morgan told MPs that the education system could no longer cater for just a small proportion of young people receiving an academic education.

Grammars are a distraction

“We don’t now live in a world where we only need the top 20 per cent of 30 per cent to be highly skilled, we need everybody to have access to a knowledge-rich, academic curriculum,” she said.

“A renewed battle on selection does distract from our focus to deal with the demands of the 21st century labour market, to give everyone a chance to close social divisions and to build a consistently strong school system.”

She added that the Prime Minister had talked about creating a “meritocracy, but who decides who has merit?”

“I think I would prefer to say that everyone has potential.”