Free schools the right idea, says Michael Gove on Wolverhampton visit

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The new wave of free schools offer better value for money than a multi-million pound school rebuilding programme scrapped by the government, the education secretary has said during a visit to the Black Country.moreAnd Michael Gove has also moved to quell an apparent row between the Department for Education and the Liberal Democrats over a plan to offer free school meals to all infant pupils from next year.

Free schools are a flagship education policy of the Conservatives but have attracted criticism from teaching unions, who say they are unaccountable.

The government says they give parents more choice and raise standards.

Building Schools for the Future, Labour's £55 billion programme to rebuild or refurbish secondary schools, was scrapped by Mr Gove shortly after the coalition took office in 2010.

He had criticised waste and bureaucracy in the scheme, while there were also concerns about delays.

Wolverhampton's project continued because it was too far advanced to be scrapped, but other areas such as Sandwell lost out on funding.

On a visit to Wolverhampton as a guest of city MP Paul Uppal yesterday, Mr Gove praised the city's Anand Primary School, the first such free school to be opened in the city.

The school in Great Brickkiln Street, Graiseley, currently has 20 pupils but is in line for a £1.6 million extension that is intended to help cater for rising demand for primary school places across the city.

Mr Gove said: "Free schools are superb value for money. Free schools are much cheaper per square metre than schools that were built under Building Schools for the Future. And it's also the case that all the free schools that have been inspected by Ofsted so far outperform other schools inspected under the same framework.

"So they are, across the board, bringing a higher quality of education, more cheaply than the old model." Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats have accused the Department for Education of 'lying' about Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg's policy of free school meals for the under sevens.

The move will cost £150m, on top of £450m set aside in 2014/15 and £635m in 2015/16, because school kitchens will need to be extended to cope with demand. Mr Clegg had said £80m of this would come from an education underspend. But after an education official told newspapers this was not the case, a Lib Dem spokesman said they were 'lying'.

However, Mr Gove told the Express & Star the government can afford it. He said: "We absolutely can. I think it's a really good thing that as well as giving free school meals to the poorest children we're also now giving them to all infant school children."

Anand Primary School is run with Sikh principles but is open to children of all faiths and of none. It received £220,000 from the Department for Education for its first year. Free schools are independent but are funded by the government. They can set their own pay rates and currciulum.