The former education secretary Michael Gove has backtracked on his opposition to opening more grammar schools after the government announced plans to expand their number.
Gove blocked the first introduction of new grammar schools in half a century in 2013, having promised three years earlier not to allow such a move in areas where the schools were not already established.
But after Theresa May announced plans to open more grammars last month, he said he now believes the “approach that the government is taking is right”.
Gove, now a backbencher after his unsuccessful run for the Conservative leadership, told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme he had opposed the opening of new grammars while in government because his Liberal Democrat coalition partners would have fought the moves, and because the then prime minister David Cameron believed it would have proven unpopular.
He refused to criticise the former prime minister, adding: “I’m clear about what the priorities were when I was education secretary but I also think it is right for every new prime minister and every new education secretary to ceaselessly try to promote excellence wherever they can.”
Asked if his position on the issue had now changed, he said: “Theresa May and Justine Greening’s motivation here is unimpeachable: they want to improve state education.”
He sought to characterise his change of heart as pragmatism, saying “the right thing to do is to explore any opportunity” and adding: “It’s wrong in education to be guided by a pristine ideology. You should have a general disposition and then you should see what works.”
He said his starting point had always been to favour “greater autonomy and higher standards”.
He would not back a return to the 11-plus exams though, saying that rolling them out across the country would be a “totally wrong and a retrograde step. But that is not what Justine Greening and the prime minister are talking about”.
It was also reported on Wednesday that Gove, one of the leading Brexit campaigners, had secured a seat on the parliamentary committee scrutinising Britain’s exit from the European Union.
He was joined by other senior leave campaigners who were sacked by the new prime minister when she arrived in Downing Street after the referendum result. A former culture secretary, John Whittingdale, and a former justice minister, Dominic Raab, will also serve.
