a decision over whether to open britain’s first ‘new’ grammar school in 50 years has been shelved until after the election, it emerged last night the proposal for an ‘annexe’ to an existing grammar school in sevenoaks, kent, is currently being considered by the education secretary nicky morgan she is awaiting legal advice and was expected to rule on the matter before the election but last night a downing street source said: ‘i do not think there’s going to be a decision on it this side of the election’ last month, the prime minister said he strongly supported the right of 'good' schools – including grammars – to grow  and if labour is elected in may then the scheme would almost certainly fail to get the go ahead the tories would probably need an overall majority rather than a coalition to give the plan a chance of being rubber stamped the delay will cause dismay among tory backbenchers and last night threatened to overshadow an announcement the prime minister is due to make today about the government’s flagship free schools programme mr cameron will announce that the tories will continue opening free schools – which are independent of local authority control they hope to set up 500 new free schools over the next parliament and 270,000 new school places if re elected mr cameron will go on to say that 49 free schools will open in september, adding: ‘if you vote conservative, you will see the continuation of the free schools programme at the rate you’ve seen in the last three years’ the proposal for a grammar school annexe comes from weald of kent grammar school in tonbridge which wants to open a campus nine miles away in sevenoaks in 2013 the plans were rejected by the department for education on legal grounds new grammar schools are banned, but there is backing in the cabinet for expanding existing schools and last month mr cameron spoke of his enthusiasm for allowing good grammar schools ‘to expand’, in what was seen as an indication that he backed the new plan however the issue is seen as hugely divisive, so it is believed that election chiefs want to avoid it coming up during the campaign the education secretary nicky morgan was preparing to give the go ahead to the new school for girls in sevenoaks, kent  the party was previously convulsed by a row over grammars in 2007 at the time, mr cameron called them an ‘albatross’, insisting there was a ‘hopelessness’ about calling for new grammars the party’s europe spokesman graham brady ended up resigning over the row last night mr brady said: ‘this annexe is clearly wanted by local parents and by kent county council 'the bid has been with the department for months and there is no reason why it cannot be dealt with immediately’ free schools raise standards at poorly performing local schools, research has shown according to think tank policy exchange, the increased competition improves results across communities george osborne is considering a pre election tax cut for 27million voters in the budget it would increase the amount workers can earn before they begin paying income tax by at least £200 the income tax personal allowance of £10,000 is to rise to £10,600 in april but the new increase would take thousands more people out of tax altogether and make the allowance almost £11,000 labour treasury spokesman chris leslie said: ‘george osborne raised vat and cut tax credits for working people, while giving millionaires a huge tax cut this chancellor gives with one hand but takes much more with the other’ next week’s budget will also give details of a crackdown on loopholes used by multinationals to avoid tax it could force firms such as google and amazon to reveal all overseas earnings
kent nicky morgan day
nicky morgan was preparing to give go ahead to new school in  kent  but she is being blocked from making announcement until after polling day  number 10 does not want any distraction from the economy in campaign 