A COMMITTEE of MPs today calls for tougher rules before the setting up of ‘free schools’, to prevent a repeat of the Durham Free School fiasco.

The Department For Education (DFE) is urged to impose stronger checks before giving the go-ahead in areas with surplus places and a large number of outstanding, existing schools.

And it is told to publish the impact on neighbouring schools – not only when an application is made, but after a free school is opened.

The recommendations go to the heart of criticism of Durham Free School (DFS), which has been condemned as inadequate by watchdog Ofsted and will close within months.

Critics, led by Roberta Blackman-Woods, Durham City’s Labour MP, argue DFS should never have been opened, in September 2013, and is a scandalous waste of money.

It attracted only about 90 pupils – in a city with high-quality schools, with empty places – and was expected to take another eight years to reach its target size of 630.

And it angered local people by opening temporarily in the former home of Durham Gilesgate Sports College, in Gilesgate, which had been controversially closed amid budget cuts.

The saga will be raised in the Commons tonight, in a debate led by Ms Blackman-Woods, who will demand that ministers reveal the full financial details behind the DFS failure.

Ministers are also under pressure to come clean about the role of Michael Gove’s former adviser, Durham-born Dominic Cummings, and his mother, in establishing the school.

Before that debate, today’s report by the Conservative-led education committee also accuses the Government of “exaggerating the success” of academies and free schools.

Pat Glass, the North West Durham Labour MP, who helped carry out the inquiry, said the report was intended to prevent a repeat of events in Durham City.

She said: “We are saying the DFE needs to look very carefully before it agrees to set up a free school in an area that already has sufficient good places and good schools.

“Durham Free School was a waste of public money – £4m was thrown away – and Michael Gove did absolutely nothing about it.”

Nicky Morgan replaced Mr Gove as Education Secretary in last year’s reshuffle. Last week, she announced DFS would be shut because “what Ofsted found is enough to shock any parent”.

Free schools have the same freedoms as academies, but have been typically set up the charitable arms of private firms, or groups of parents, or teachers.

There are now 1,884 secondary academies (60 per cent of the total) and 2,299 primaries (13 per cent), after outstanding schools were encouraged to convert.