The Education Secretary was grilled by the Sky News presenter over her comments about private schools.
Sky News presenter Kay Burley left the Education Secretary red-faced, after calling into the question the tone of her language on private schools.
Ms Burley was joined in the Sky studio by Bridgett Phillipson, who recently took to X to say: “Our state schools need teachers more than private schools need embossed stationery.
“Our children need mental health support more than private schools need new pools. Our students need careers advice more than private schools need AstroTurf pitches.”
Ms Burley asked the Labour frontbencher, born in Washington in the north-east: “So you stand by those words?”. This is after Ms Phillipson was pictured playing hockey on a private school’s AstroTurf pitch, around the time she posted her message on X.
Her game, in which she reportedly scored, took place around five hours before she took to social media to lambast fee-paying schools.
Reacting to the apparent hypocrisy, former Tory MP Jacob Rees Mogg said, according to the Telegraph: “It is ‘do as I say not as I do’ while levelling down for everyone else.
“Stopping private schools from having AstroTurf pitches will not add a single careers adviser to a state school because pupils are already being taken out of private education so the Government will not raise the money it anticipates.”
He branded her behaviour: “classic socialism”.
A spokesman for Ms Phillipson told the outlet: “Bridget has made clear that her hockey club fulfil away fixtures against opposing teams who rent the facilities of private schools, often because of the lack of community hockey facilities.”
Ms Phillipson appeared on Sky this morning, after Labour launched its £15m funding pot to deliver hundreds of new nursery places.
It’s the first phase of the government’s plan to open an additional 3,000 nurseries through “upgrading” space in existing primary schools.
