Kate Green MP, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, responding to the sacking of the Department for Education’s Permanent Secretary Jonathan Slater, said:

“Under this Government civil servants have time and time again taken the fall for the incompetence and failures of Ministers.

“Parents will be looking on in dismay at a government in complete chaos just a matter of days before children will return to schools.

“Leadership requires a sense of responsibility and a willingness to be held accountable, qualities this Prime Minister and his ministers utterly lack.”