Pledging to increase freedom for individual schools, the government has set out its five-year plan for education.

Charles Clarke told MPs yesterday that all secondary schools will become specialists in one subject area, while those that already are will be allowed to add another area of expertise.

The blueprint continues the government's key theme of choice for users of public services and promises a "step change" in the secondary system.

An expansion of city academies was also announced, as ministers bid to provide a range of high quality options for pupils.

"Driving our reforms will be a new system of independent schools," Clarke told the Commons.

Interviewed in the Guardian today, the education secretary says he wants to lure middle-class families back into the state sector.

"There is a significant chunk of them who go private because they feel despairing about the quality of education. They are the people we are after," he said.

The Conservatives said Clarke was wrong to promise it would not return to selection while allowing specialist schools to pick five per cent of pupils by "aptitude".

"You want to be able to tell the middle classes that selection will come back while telling your own backbenchers that selection will be kept out," education spokesman Tim Collins said.