An incoming Labour Government would reintroduce strong local oversight of schools, shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt has confirmed.

Speaking today at the publication of former home and education secretary David Blunkett’s report into raising school standards, Mr Hunt claimed as a result of the Coalition’s academisation drive, more than one and a half million children were being left to ‘sink or swim’ in underperforming schools.

He accused education secretary Michael Gove of miring the school landscape - in which around 3,000 academies have been freed from local authority control to be  managed from Whitehall - as leading to incoherence, confusion and lack of accountability.