Tory schools chief Gillian Keegan fails to give Government top marks for performance

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan was asked about the Government’s performance during an LBC interview

The Education Secretary has refused to give the Government top marks when asked to rate its performance.

Gillian Keegan said she would rate the Government as “Good” using Ofsted’s four-point grading scale, which ranks schools from Outstanding to Inadequate. Asked how she would grade the Government’s performance during an LBC phone-in, she said: “I would say ‘Good’. Often a lot of the things that we’ve delivered nobody ever talks about.”

Mrs Keegan added: “When you’ve gone from 68% to 89% Good or Outstanding schools, when you’ve gone from no apprenticeship system to one that’s training 5.7 million people, I think you can look and say there’s a lot that has been achieved. And by the way, kids in the world, kids are fourth in the world for reading and eleven for maths. I think there’s good there.”

Asked to sum up the Government in one word, Ms Keegan said: “Delivering.” It comes as Rishi Sunak admitted he was failing to deliver on cutting NHS waiting lists – one of his key pledges. The Prime Minister promised to slash the massive backlog for care in January 2023 but waiting lists are actually higher than when he made the pledge.

In an interview with Piers Morgan’s Uncensored programme on TalkTV, Mr Sunak said: “We have not made enough progress.” Pressed again on whether he had failed on the pledge, he admitted: “Yes, we have.”

Mr Sunak sought to blame ongoing NHS strikes and the pandemic for the backlog. But in November – when there was no industrial action – there were 7.61 million outstanding treatments, compared to 7.21 million last January.

Mr Sunak said: “Yes, and we all know the reasons for that. And what I would say to people is, look, we have invested record amounts in the NHS, more doctors, more nurses, more scanners. All these things mean that the NHS is doing more today than it ever has been. But industrial action has had an impact.”

The PM also blamed the pandemic, saying: “We can’t escape that… When you shut down the country in the NHS for the best part of two years, that has had an impact on everything since then. And we just have to recognise that reality.”

Mr Sunak’s other key pledge – to stop small boats arrivals – is also hanging in the balance after the Supreme Court deemed it unlawful. Legislation to overcome these obstacles by declaring Rwanda a safe country is currently passing through the Lords.