More Wigan children accepted into first-choice school

The figures come during an intense debate about the future of school places, following Labour’s plans to remove the VAT exemption on private schools.

In Wigan, 7,095 applications were submitted for places in primary and secondary schools for the upcoming academic year.

Of these, 93 per cent received their first preference – a slight rise on last year, when 91 per cent were successful.

Across England 83 per cent of secondary and 93 per cent of primary pupils got into the school they wanted, a minor improvement on last year.

The figures showed 65,447 pupils across England were offered a place in a different local authority to where they lived – this included 330 pupils in ​Wigan.

Labour intends to abolish private schools' charitable status, which the Conservatives have warned would force them to increase fees, prompting fears state schools would be overwhelmed by former private school pupils.

Analysis by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) suggests this is unlikely to happen due to declining class sizes and a fall in the birth rate.

The IFS estimates adding VAT to private school fees could cause a three to seven per cent reduction in private school attendance – about 17,000 to 40,000 children.

However, state school pupil numbers across England are due to decline by an expected drop of more than 625,000 between 2023 and 2030 – only slightly below the total number of private school pupils.

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "It’s great to see that more parents are getting their first-place preferences, and this is likely to be a national trend we’ll see in future years too as the number of school pupils continues to fall because of a decline in births.

"It won’t be evenly spread, however, and there will continue to be pressure on places in some schools because of local factors."

He said it is "difficult to know" how the proposed VAT levy would affect school places, and the Labour government should conduct "careful modelling" before doing so.