SHADOW Education Secretary Tristram Hunt backed greater transparency in national decisions on school buildings funding and less emphasis on creating free schools when he visited Ilkley Grammar School.

The MP was invited to Ilkley by Labour prospective parliamentary candidate for Keighley, John Grogan, to see the school’s efforts to cope with increasingly cramped conditions and a maintenance backlog.

Mr Hunt was taken on a tour of the school site, and talked to headteacher, Helen Williams, about the school’s need to expand.

Mr Hunt said: “This is a school which clearly needs major capital investment both in terms of the existing estate, and also the capacity issue. This is a successful school, which primary school kids will want to come to as their secondary school choice. We want to make sure it has the capacity to take in these students.”

Asked how a Labour government would find funding for the many schools in a similar position to Ilkley Grammar, Mr Hunt questioned spending on free schools and the involvement of party politics in the decision-making process around the building projects.

He said: “There is a challenge in terms of the schools estate. I think what we need is more transparency and openness in these decisions. We’ve seen an awful lot of money going into Surrey and Hertfordshire, in some of the schools there, and we’re not totally convinced. We’ve seen an awful lot of money spent on free schools and creating places in areas which don’t need them.”

Mr Grogan said he wanted Mr Hunt to see the conditions at the school, particularly in the light of the school’s bid for PSBP funding being rejected.