Ministers fail to sell themselves on playing field sell-offs

If you’re a minister, or even the Prime Minister, and you take to the airwaves holding a page of figures aloft, it’s always a good idea to make sure the figures are actually correct before you enter the studio. When David Cameron read out a break down of playing field sales on LBC radio during the Olympics, he was trying to crush reports that under this government, schools are continuing to reduce their sports facilities in return for money. You can watch the film of Cameron with his sheet of paper here. The problem is that this sheet of paper wasn’t actually correct when it said there were only 21 sell-offs, and as Christopher Hope reveals in today’s Telegraph, there were actually 35 applications to sell school playing fields, of which 30 were approved. There are still two outstanding decisions, while the others were either rejected or withdrawn. In a statement this morning, the Education department said:

‘We are sorry to say that the Secretary of State was provided with incorrect information about how many playing fields were disposed of since May 2010.