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Tristram Hunt: "If you are a group of parents... interested in setting up a school... then the Labour government will be on your side"
Labour is "on the side" of parents who want to set up schools and would not shut most existing free schools, the new shadow education secretary insists.
Tristram Hunt told the BBC Labour backed "enterprise and innovation" when it came to increasing school places.
A future Labour government would push ahead with what it calls parent-led academies in areas of educational need.
The government accuses Labour of saying it will end free schools and then promoting them under another name.
Free schools, set up by parents and other groups and operating outside local authority control, have been established under a flagship policy pioneered by Education Secretary Michael Gove.
More than 170 have been opened across England since September 2011.
Labour has been accused of sending out mixed messages about the party's support for them, opposing their roll-out at a national level but backing individual schools locally.
'Vanity project'Mr Hunt, who took over from Stephen Twigg as the party's education spokesman last week, described free schools as a "vanity project for yummy mummies" in 2010 but has now said he regrets those comments.
It may not be a policy u-turn but it is a definite change of tone form the party which has opposed free schools since Michael Gove first announced them following the 2010 general election.
Labour claimed the policy would allow middle-class parents to set up elitist state schools.
As recently as June this year, the then Shadow Education Secretary Stephen Twigg pledged that if Labour won the next election it would end the building of free schools and reassert local oversight of academy schools.
But how big a change is it?
Mr Twigg also said that existing free schools and those already in the pipeline would continue.
Mr Hunt has reiterated that now, saying Labour will keep "the good free schools" if it wins power.
He said he wants to see more "parent led academies" run by social entrepreneurs and able to set their own curriculum - but only in areas of need.
Labour say it's not a change in policy but it is a change of heart for the new shadow education secretary, who as the newly elected MP for Stoke-on-Trent in 2010, described free schools as a "vanity project for yummy mummies".
He told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show that Labour's position on free schools had not changed and that while a future Labour government would not open new ones "along the Michael Gove model", the bulk of existing ones would be kept open.
"We will keep the good free schools when we get into government."
Citing the case of the Al-Madinah free school in Derby - which is threatened with closure after it was found by Ofsted to have discriminated towards female staff, delivered a poor standard of education, and failed to ensure the safety of children - Mr Hunt said Labour would not allow schools to become an "ideological experiment".
"What is going on with the Al-Madinah school is a terrifying example of the mistakes of Michael Gove's education policy," he said, suggesting that there had been "no oversight" of how the school was being run.
"400 kids have been sent home for the week. They have had no schooling because of an ideological experiment by Michael Gove and that cannot be right."
'Properly qualified'New schools, he added, should only be opened in areas where there was a shortage of places, where "properly qualified" staff could be recruited and where institutions were financially accountable and transparent.
Under Labour's plans, parent-led academies would also enable parent groups and other organisations to set up schools outside local authority control, although local authorities would have greater powers to intervene when there were concerns about standards.
"If you are a group of parents, social entrepreneurs and teachers interested in setting up a school in areas where you need new school places, then the Labour government will be on your side.
"We are in favour of enterprise and innovation."
More generally, Mr Hunt said there needed to be more focus on vocational education with support for further education colleges and apprenticeships in industry.
As a professional historian with a PHD from Cambridge, Mr Hunt said he would "take no lessons" from Mr Gove on the need for academic rigour and standards in education but suggested the government had become "obsessed" with tinkering with the curriculum and the examinations system.
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