ANY hopes Tony Blair had of a swift passage for his highly contested education reforms suffered a blow last night as the Conservatives threatened to delay the reforms for months.

The Prime Minister will win a huge Commons majority today for his Bill to set up self-governing trust schools despite facing one of the biggest second-reading rebellions in Labour history.

The victory is likely because David Cameron has ordered Tory MPs to back the Bill. But Mr Cameron was being accused of sabotage last night as it emerged that he is trying to defeat the Government in a later vote tonight on its plan to set a strict timetable for discussing the Bill.

Tory strategists said that Mr Cameron was happy to back the principle of the legislation, but it was not his job to help the Government with its parliamentary timetable. By voting against the motion, the Tories will also be able to show up the scale of the Labour rebellion.

Labour whips said that if there were a Government defeat on the “timetable” vote it could disrupt the legislative programme, with the education Bill taking up time allotted to other legislation. The scale of government concern was shown when it emerged that Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, had met Scottish and Welsh nationalists to try to persuade them to back the timetable motion.

The Government has proposed that the education Bill be given 20 separate sessions for its consideration in a Commons standing committee, plus two full days in the chamber at its report stage.

The Tories say that, for such a large and controversial Bill, that amount of time is inadequate. Last night Tory sources denied that the party was trying to kill the Bill by a back-door route. “All we are doing is ensuring this Bill gets the scrutiny it should,” they said.

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