Shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt criticises party’s approach such as delay of school starting age, as a ‘throwback to the 70s’

The Green party’s education policies are “total madness” and a “flashback to the 1970s” that would most hurt the disadvantaged, says shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt, in a full-throated attack that suggests Labour is concerned at the Greens’ recent opinion poll improvement.

In an interview with the Guardian, Labour’s Hunt said scrutiny of the Greens’ education policies revealed them to be attempting to turn back the clock on policies such as school improvement and accountability that had proven to be successful in state schools in England.

“‘The Green party sell themselves as a new type of politics but when you look closely, they’re anything but modern – they’re more like a flashback to the 1970s than a vision of the future. Nowhere is this clearer than in education,” Hunt said.

Hunt argued that Labour’s reforms aimed at reducing the educational attainment gaps between rich and poor, including better funded early years’ education, sponsored academies and reforms to literacy and numeracy, would be put at risk.

“To those on the left who say that Labour should cosy up to the Greens, to do this would do a monumental disservice to the people we are in politics to represent. At every opportunity – and with the same vigour with which we approach Ukip and all of our political opponents – we should expose the Greens and their stop-the-world-I-want-to-get-off politics,” Hunt said.

Green education policies include delaying the start of formal schooling until the age of six; ending the use of standardised achievement tests in schools; restricting data that would allow the publication of school league tables; abolishing the schools inspectorate Ofsted; and ending the status of academies and free schools.

In a recent interview, the Green party leader, Natalie Bennett, said it was “unrealistic” for schools to overcome inequality. “We have to get away from the idea that schools can somehow make up for the incredible levels of child poverty,” Bennett told the Guardian in September.

Hunt said such policies were “total madness”.

“Natalie Bennett speaks a language of low aspiration and defeatism. Great schools can be the only hope for some children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“She should not be dismissing the incredibly powerful role of schools – like Paddington Academy in London, a Labour sponsor academy – where the determination of excellent school leaders and teachers is transforming the life changes and broadening the horizons of young people.

“Bennett says that she wants to delay pupils beginning school and end the ability to monitor their progress throughout primary school. This means that the children from the most deprived backgrounds, those who are not read to at home, will incur further barriers to education. This is total madness.”

The Greens have recently seen their poll ratings improve, in some cases above those of the Liberal Democrats. The party is the main rival to Labour in a few key marginal seats, most notably in Bristol West, causing Labour’s big guns such as Hunt to turn on them.

Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green party, responded to Hunt’s remarks by saying that today’s school pupils were being “treated like mince in a sausage machine, shoved through exam after exam” and harming their mental health. “The Green party has a joined-up education policy based on extensive evidence,” she said.

“I am gravely concerned about low exam results and high dropout rates from children from disadvantaged backgrounds. But I understand that even wonderful schools can’t fully compensate for severe poverty and stress at home - which is why making the minimum wage a living wage, affordable and warm homes, and ensuring decent benefits are available to all who needs them, are education issues as well as social justice issues.”