Excluded students are being driven to knife crime because they have “nowhere to go” in a third of local authorities, MPs have warned.

There are 47 councils in England that have no state funded “alternative provision” for pupils who have been kicked out of school, according to information obtained under freedom of information requests.

The finding came after the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on knife crime wrote to all the local authorities in England last year to ask them what education they provide for children who have been permanently excluded from mainstream schools.

Now MPs have called on ministers to launch a review into alternative provision, as they warn that children who are excluded from mainstream schools “are at serious risk of grooming and exploitation by criminal gangs”.

All councils have a legal obligation to provide children with full time education. Local councils that have no state funded alternative provision - which can include pupil referral units or a part-time education plan - might be able to offer children places in neighbouring boroughs.

In a new report that examines the links between exclusion from school and knife crime, the parliamentary group urged the Government to investigate the amount of capacity in part-time and alternative provision “as a matter of urgency”.