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Theresa May has been accused of 'deliberately misleading Parliament' after she used discredited statistics in the House of Commons.

Jeremy Corbyn challenged the Prime Minister on her record on education spending reminding her that the Education Secretary Damian Hinds had been written to by the Official Stats Watchdog four times in the last year.

In defending her minister, Theresa May repeated one of the claims that has been disputed by the National Statistics Authority.

Labour's Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner is writing to the Prime Minister to ask her to correct the record.

Mrs May said: "We now see 1.9m more children in good or outstanding schools compared to 2010."

In a letter to Damian Hinds sent earlier this week the head of the UK stats authority Sir David Norgrove highlighted this claim which was first made in the Secretary of State's speech to conference.

Sir David said that while the claim was "accurate as far as it goes," it had failed to "give a full picture" and should have been put in context with an overall rise in pupil numbers as well as changes to the way inspections are carried out.

He said more generally: “The UK Statistics Authority has had cause to publicly write to the department with concerns on four occasions in the past year. I regret that the department does not yet appear to have resolved issues with its use of statistics.

"I seek your reassurance that the department remains committed to the principles and practices defined in the statutory code of practice for statistics."

Overall he cautioned ministers to present figures "in a way that does not mislead" in future.

At the end of Prime Minister's Questions shadow education minister Tracey Brabin raised the issue.

The Speaker John Bercow replied: "I am not the truth commissioner" and said it was up to the individual MP to account for the accuracy of their own comments.

Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner said in response: “It is almost beyond belief that the Prime Minister would use this utterly discredited claim in the very week that the official statistics watchdog has made clear that the government should stop making it.

"Either this is a government in such total chaos that the Prime Minister was not even aware of the ruling by the UK Statistics Authority, or she has deliberately repeated a wildly misleading figure in defiance of independent advice and in the full knowledge that it is wildly misleading.

“Her claims on school funding are no better. The Tories have already cut billions of pounds from school budgets, and per pupil funding is falling, not rising, in real terms.

“It is a clear breach of the ministerial code to deliberately mislead Parliament.

"The Prime Minister must now apologise, correct the record and accept the reality: her government has imposed swingeing cuts on schools and there is no reliable evidence for their claims to have improved standards.

“If austerity really is over, this month’s Budget must reverse the cuts to education and provide the investment our schools, nurseries and colleges so desperately need.”

"Theresa May must correct the record immediately."

In Sir David's damning letter he said he had "serious concerns about the Department for Education's presentation and use of statistics".

He highlighted four occasions that had caused the authority concern but stressed that there was no sign that ministers had learned from their mistakes.

Ministers downplayed concerns from headteachers who marched on Parliament to protest school funding by insisting that the UK was “the third highest spender on education in the world”.

But a BBC report found the figures also included money spent by university students on tuition fees and parents on private school fees prompting the stats authority to launch an investigation.

Today, just minutes before the letter from Sir David was published, Education Secretary Damian Hinds doubled down on claims about the UK's spending compared to other countries.

Sir David referred to a number of occasions when they were forced to criticise the department.

Last week, the Minister of State for School Standards Nick Gobb wrote that, in an international survey of reading abilities of nine-year-olds, England “leapfrogged up the rankings last year, after decades of falling standards, going from 19th out of 50 countries to 8th.”

Sir David said in this letter: "This is not correct. Figures published last year show the increase was from 10th place in 2011 to 8th place in 2016."

(Image: PA)

He also highlighted a recent tweet and blog from the department in which he said "figures were presented in such a way as to misrepresent changes in school funding."

He explained that spending was "exaggerated by using a truncated axis, and by not adjusting for per pupil spend".

Sir David also referenced the claim which the BBC exposed - which the department has since updated - saying that the original way it was presented used "a wide range of education expenditure unrelated to publicly funded schools" to "give a more favourable picture".

The stats chief also highlighted concerns raised by Labour's Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner over the DfE's claim that there had been a "substantial increase" in the number of children attending high performing schools as judged by regulator Ofsted.

Labour described the letter as a "humiliating rebuke" for Tory ministers who have been reprimanded four times for their use of stats over the last year.