MICHAEL Gove has refused to rule out the closure of a North-East school if a controversial parent-sponsored ‘free school’ opens nearby.

Quizzed in the Commons, the Education Secretary was asked about the impact if 900-place Ingleby Manor Free School creates hundreds of surplus places in the Stockton area.

Stockton North MP Alex Cunningham has warned that pupils could drain away to the proposed Ingleby Barwick school from two nearby secondaries - Conyers School, in Yarm, and Egglescliffe School, in Eaglescliffe.

Mr Cunningham asked Mr Gove: “Does he expect any schools in the area, attended by children from my constituency, to close as a result of the creation of surplus places if a new free school is opened in the south of the borough?”

In response, the Education Secretary ducked the question, focusing instead on the views he heard from local people on a visit to Stockton last week.

He replied: “People were saying to me that they need a new school because, apart from the free school that is being built, provision in the north of the constituency is not good enough.

“I am only sorry that Labour-led Stockton council has stood in the way of parents who are working with us, and with the Conservative MP [James Wharton], to improve education.”

Supporters of the free school argue there are only 650 places for pupils from Ingleby Barwick - Europe's largest private housing estate - at All Saints Secondary School.

As a result, the rest of the 1,500 11-18-year-olds living on the estate have to be bussed to the schools in Yarm and Eaglescliffe, around five miles away.

Councillors threw out the application in February, over concerns that the land at Little Maltby Farm, off Low Lane - which was also earmarked for 350 homes - was greenfield.

Fears were also raised that, once some houses were built there, developers and landowners would be able to apply to build many more.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles will now decide the application, possibly as early as next month, after the developers appealed, on the grounds that the council had not adhered to planning rules.

It is a growing criticism of free schools, which are outside local authority influence, that too many are creating surplus places – instead of being built where there are shortages.

Mr Gove originally pledged that most would open in areas with sink schools, but Mr Cunningham said both Conyers and Egglescliffe schools were high-performing.

The next Conservative manifesto is likely to pledge that free schools can be profit-making – something vetoed by the Liberal Democrats in this parliament.

Mr Gove also praised Stockton South’s Mr Wharton as an “outstanding MP, adding: “People were saying to me ‘if only there more Conservatives in the North-East’.”