Nic Dakin MP, Labour’s Shadow Schools Minister, commenting on the news Tory Ministers have suspended the grammar, punctuation and spelling tests at Key Stage 1 in England after test papers were accidentally posted online, said:

“This is complete and utter chaos from Tory Ministers who are losing control of their Department. Children, parents and teachers, waking up this morning to the news that all the work they have put into SATs preparation for the spelling and grammar test is for nothing, are paying the price for the failure and incompetence of Ministers.

"Our education system is facing a teacher shortage crisis, a broken school places system, chaos and confusion in the exam and assessment regime, a mauling from the National Audit Office because the Department’s accounts are in meltdown and school budgets are facing the biggest real terms cut since the late 1970s.

"Yet David Cameron and his Education Ministers are obsessed with school structures and turning all good and outstanding primary and secondary schools into academies against their will. Their fixation on the name above the door rather than what is going on in the classroom means they have taken their eye off the ball and we are seeing the results day in day out. This will impact on standards will harm children’s futures.”