Addressing Labour party members in his keynote speech to their annual conference, Balls warned that cash being invested into free schools is depriving existing schools of much needed refurbishment and rebuilding.
"Because of [Education Secretary] Michael Gove’s short-sighted and arbitrary and unfair decision to scrap the Building Schools for the Future programme, over 700,000 children in 700 schools up and down our country will now not be getting the new school building they were promised," he said.
"What really upsets me is that as Michael Gove is dashing the hopes of children in state schools around our country, he and [Prime Minister] David Cameron are also travelling round promising new school buildings to a few parents but only if they are willing to opt out of the state system and any relationship with the elected local authority and set up one of their go-it-alone DIY ‘free market’ schools.
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