TOP-CLASS teachers and adequate funding must be made available to comprehensive schools if the system is to work, a Bolton MP said today.

Labour's David Young, a former teacher, insisted that properly resourced comprehensive schools could hold their own against selective grammar and private schools.

And he launched an angry attack on successive Tory governments which he claimed had allowed state schools to deteriorate.

Mr Young, MP for Bolton South-east, said: "If you want to make state education appeal to those able to choose where to send their children to school, adequate funding must be available.

"This means enough to provide quality teaching and reduce class sizes to a ratio comparable with schools in the private sector. "It means that it is not enough simply to pass legislation making selection illegal. This must also be backed up by the resources to raise state schools - so long neglected by Tory governments - to the level of other schools."

Mr Young said he would be pressing for a commitment from Labour to raise state school standards as soon as the party was returned to power.

"It is going to be a long, hard battle, but we must look at how we are going to stop teachers leaving the profession.

"This will mean paying for teachers who are the equal of the best anywhere in Britain so that there is no excuse for leaving the public for the private sector." Mr Young added that, if necessary, funds should be taken from grant maintained schools like St James, Farnworth, which had already received disproportionate shares of state funds.

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