Liz Truss has claimed to be the first Prime Minister to have attended comprehensive school in her Conservative Party conference speech.
According to fact checking group Full Fact this isn’t correct. At least one other previous Prime Minister attended a comprehensive school. Theresa May’s biography on the government website says that she received some private education, but also went to a comprehensive. This appears to be a reference to Wheatley Park, a former grammar school near Oxford that became a comprehensive in 1971, when Mrs May was 14.
A spokesperson for Wheatley Park told Full Fact that Mrs May joined the school when she was 13 “when the Upper School site was still Holton Girls Grammar School, and left it after her Sixth Form by which time it was the Upper School site of Wheatley Park Comprehensive School. The school was officially a comprehensive from September 1971" and a 2016 BBC report on Mrs May’s school days refers to her as a pupil there in 1974.
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Gordon Brown’s former school, Kirkcaldy High, is now a comprehensive, but Full Fact say they have not yet been able to independently verify whether this was true when Mr Brown attended. The Spectator has previously reported that it was a grammar at the time, and The Times has said that he was selected to go there as part of a fast track scheme.
After the speech, Wales Secretary Robert Buckland also told Sky News that Ms Truss was “the first Prime Minister to have gone to a comprehensive school”. Full Fact say they have contacted the Conservative Party to ask about Ms Truss’s and Mr Buckland’s claim.
Speaking at the confernce Ms Truss said: "I stand here today as the first Prime Minister of our country to have gone to a comprehensive school. That taught me two things: one is that we have huge talent across our country and two that we're not making enough of it. This is a great country. I'm so proud of who we are and what we stand for, but I know that we can do better and I know that we must do better and that's why I entered politics.
"I want to live in a country where hard work's rewarded, where women can walk home safely at night and where our children have a better future." She also told the party conference that she knew "what it's like to live somewhere that isn't feeling the benefits of economic growth".
Ms Truss said: "I grew up in Paisley and in Leeds in the Eighties and Nineties. I've seen the boarded-up shops. I've seen people left with no hope turning to drugs. I have seen families struggling to put food on the table.
"Low growth isn't just numbers on a spreadsheet. Low growth means lower wages, fewer opportunities and less money to spend on the things that make life better."
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