Policy Announcements, Wednesday 15 August

Conservatives

• The Conservative Party is preparing to commit itself to setting up "turnaround" schools for badly-behaved pupils. Discussing a policy programme focused strongly around pupil discipline, shadow schools minister Nick Gibb told ePolitix.com that head teachers must be given more powers to exclude disruptive students without risk of their decision being overturned by local authorities. And he said the party was looking at opening "turnaround" schools to tackle those excluded pupils, reviving a policy trailed by the party ahead of the 2005 general election when school discipline was at the heart of the Tory manifesto.