DAVID Cameron, the Conservatives' shadow education spokesman, stepped into the Darlington schools closure debate yesterday by saying that the fate of Hurworth School illustrated the failings in the Government's policy on secondary education.

At a time when Tony Blair is championing parental choice in education, Mr Cameron said it was odd that Darlington council should be able to close a successful school against the wishes of some parents and residents.

He said: "I support proper autonomy for schools and, if a community loves its school and the parents want it to be a foundation school and have all the independence it can have, they should be able to.

"This shows up the contradiction in Labour's White Paper. It says 'let's have more school independence, but let's keep them within the control of the Local Education Authority'.

"This is contradictory, because the LEA won't give the schools freedom. It will try to force amalgamation and closures, when what parents want is real autonomy for schools, greater diversity of schools, and greater choice between schools that all have at their heart rigour in standards and discipline."

Darlington council wants to merge Hurworth School, which was built in the early-1960s, with the struggling Eastbourne School to form a city academy on a new site.