LABOUR should not be afraid of taking its education policy lead from teaching unions, shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt said yesterday.

Addressing the ATL conference, Mr Hunt called for a radical shake-up of Ofsted inspections and pledged to roll back the frontiers of bureaucratic central control.

“Ofsted needs to move towards a supportive, light-touch, profession-led, centrally moderated, peer-review system of inspection,” he told delegates.

“An incoming Labour government will support this pathway to reform.”

He said the party was encouraged by blueprints for Ofsted reform put forward by the ATL and the National Association of Head Teachers.

Asked after his speech if this would encourage the view that Labour was in thrall to “vested interests,” he said:

“We’re going to move on from the period of saying anything said by teachers and teaching unions is in conflict with parents.”

Mr Hunt also reiterated Labour’s plan to abolish the Tories’ free school programme.

“It does not matter how many reports with dubious sample sizes the Tories get their in-house think tanks to produce — the Labour Party needs no further evidence on free schools,” he said.

But asked by the Star to clarify Labour’s position on existing free schools, Mr Hunt said that he would not close down existing free schools and that those in the pipeline would be honoured.