MICHAEL Gove was accused of ignoring the pain of parents who lost their promised new schools, after falling to mention the controversy in his conference speech.

The under-fire Schools Secretary spoke just hours after three local councils - Nottingham, Luton and Waltham Forest - launched a legal challenge to his scrapping of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.

That shock decision also culled rebuilding schemes at 70-odd secondaries across the North-East and triggered widespread anger, including in Darlington, County Durham, Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar and Cleveland and Hartlepool.

But Mr Gove's warmly-applauded speech concentrated on the touchstone Tory issues of traditional teaching and classroom discipline - without mentioning the fate of the schools that lost out.

Instead, he announced a plan to open academies in more than 100 buildings owned by his department for education (Dfe), many of which were empty.

But Vernon Coaker, Labour's schools spokesman, said: "The promise of opening up a handful of schools in disused education department office blocks will be of no comfort to the 700 communities - and over 700,000 children - who have seen their promised new school building cancelled.

"On the day when three local councils launched legal action against the government, it is typically heartless that there was not a single mention of Building Schools for the Future from Michael Gove, let alone an apology for the hurt and damage he has caused."

In his speech, Mr Gove announced that: * Headteachers will be given the power to discipline pupils, even if they misbehave outside school premises.

* Good spelling, grammar and punctuation will be rewarded in the marking of exams.

* The historian Simon Schama would advise the national curriculum review of history, to ensure lessons were not dominated by "Hitler and Henry VIII".

Mr Gove condemned the education gulf between successful and struggling schools, which meant just 45 of the very poorest pupils gained a place at the top universities every year.

He told the conference: "This waste of talent, this squandering of human potential, this grotesque failure to give all our fellow citizens an equal chance, is a reproach to our conscience."