Since Michael Gove's GCSE replacement won't be introduced until 2015, with the first exam papers sat in 2017, Labour's response to the reforms is more significant than usual. As Helen noted yesterday [2], if elected in 2015, the party could simply scrap them.

So, where does Labour stand? Shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg yesterday focused almost exclusively on criticising Gove's decision to announce the changes through the Mail on Sunday [3], rather than parliament, a reliable sign of indecisiveness (who ever heard of a politician leaking information to the press?). But ahead of the Education Secretary's statement to MPs at 3:30pm, Twigg has issued a more robust condemnation [4] of the plans. He said:

The problem with these changes are they are totally out of date, from a Tory-led Government totally out of touch with modern Britain. Whatever the reassurances, this risks a return to a two-tier system which left thousands of children on the scrap heap at the age of 16. Why else are the changes being delayed until 2017?
 
Schools do need to change as all children stay on in education to 18 and we face up to the challenges of the 21st Century. We won't achieve that with a return to the 1980s. Instead, we need a system that promotes rigour and breadth, and prepares young people for the challenges of the modern economy.

While that's not a cast-iron commitment to repeal the reforms, the strength of Twigg's criticism means that it will be hard for Labour to avoid doing so. Elsewhere, Stewart Wood, Ed Miliband's consigliere and a member of the shadow cabinet, has tweeted [5]: "I've spent 2 hours trying to find evidence to back the scrapping of continuous assessment in favour of 100% exam-based marks. No joy so far."

Update: Nick Gibb, who was schools minister until the reshuffle, has said that Labour would not able to scrap the exams if elected in 2015. Here's his (rather persuasive) explanation:

Well, [Labour] won’t be able to because schools will already be preparing for it from September 2014. They won’t be the government in 2014. If – and I hope it doesn’t happen – they win the election in 2015, schools will already be prepared and it will be too late for the government to change the policy. Schools will be already ready to teach these exams. We had the same issue when we came into office; we were unhappy with the modular GCSE English that was starting to be taught in September 2010. It was too late to change it and then we’ve seen the problem we’ve had this year because of that.