BRADFORD East MP Imran Hussain is demanding £300,000 be returned to two schools in his constituency, following the collapse of Wakefield City Academy Trust.

Mr Hussain has written to the Secretary of State of Education, Gavin Williamson, outlining his disappointment for not being informed of WCAT's liquidation and says he wants to see all the £300,000 stripped from Barkerend Academy and Thornbury Academy, returned.

The money is in addition to a sum of £750,000 Mr Hussain successfully secured in respect of Priority One Funding and Multi-Academy Trust Development and Improvement Funding to support the two schools after the demise of WCAT, days into the 2017-18 academic year.

Mr Hussain said the additional money he is trying to recoup was given to the Trust as support funding, taken from the schools and put into a 'rainy days pot'.

However, Mr Hussain said this money was taken out of there and put into a centralised pot and it is this he is trying to get back for his schools.

In his letter to Mr Williamson, Mr Hussain says: "I am writing to you following the recent reports that liquidation of the Wakefield City Academy Trust (WCAT) is finally expected to begin later this month after much delay and uncertainty for the schools affected by the Trust’s collapse.

"As you will be aware, WCAT operated two schools in my constituency - Barkerend Academy and Thornbury Academy - which serve some of the most deprived areas of Bradford.

"I am, therefore, deeply disappointed that I and other MPs have not been informed of the impending liquidation and the return of financial assets to ex-WCAT schools following this process.

"Following becoming part of WCAT, Barkerend and Thornbury Academies have lost £300,000 in savings as a result of this money being stripped by WCAT’s management into a centralised fund for the Trust that the two schools had no access to.

"These savings were not part of the day-to-day spending of either Barkerend Academy or Thornbury Academy and were instead accumulated via a variety of means to build a ‘rainy day’ fund for the schools, or to make investments in their pupils’ education. WCAT, therefore, had no right to strip funding from these schools and I am disappointed that the Department for Education had no power to prevent them from doing so.

"Whilst I am grateful that the Department for Education agreed to provide financial support to the Trust taking over WCAT schools in Bradford to ensure that the pupils at these schools face no further disadvantage, it is only right that both Barkerend and Thornbury Academies see all of the funding that they had stripped by WCAT returned to them.

"The Department for Education must ensure that this is done as a matter of urgency once the liquidation of WCAT has finally concluded. The education of our children and investments made by schools in their pupils’ futures and education cannot suffer because of financial mismanagement by Academy Trusts or insufficient scrutiny of an Academy Trust’s takeover of schools by the Regional Schools Commissioner and Department for Education."

After the collapse of WCAT, Barkerend and Thornbury have been taken over by Star Academies Trust, which also runs High Crags Primary Leadership Academy, and 21 other schools nationwide.

The Telegraph & Argus approached the Department for Education for a comment.