It is no surprise the new Government has halted the final phase of Building Schools for the Future – a £55 billion scheme to rebuild and refurbish every secondary school in England.

This flagship Labour programme was always likely to be in the firing line as the Tories and Lib Dems set about cutting costs, especially as they claimed it was bedevilled by bureaucracy, delays and overspends.

But yesterday’s decision made no distinction between those projects which are simply desirable as part of Council restructuring plans and those which are genuinely needed and should go ahead because the buildings in question are in a parlous state and not fit for the education of our children.

Even in tough financial times, it is important to have a system which can recognise the latter.

The Council is also due to resume control of education after a broadly disappointing period of stewardship by a private company, and if it could take on that challenge without having to cope with the fallout created by the shelving of all these schemes, that would be a relief to everyone concerned.

Thankfully, the Government has said that while it is doing away with an inflexible and needlessly complex programme, some projects could still be funded in the future.

A number of Bradford schemes must surely fall into that category and it would be helpful to know which ones, sooner rather than later. Uncertainty does no-one any good.