Bridget Phillipson has sparked anger by suggesting that boys should be allowed to wear dresses to school.

The Education Secretary said pupils should be allowed to 'experiment' with their gender identity and teachers should not be 'coming down too hard' on them.

However she added that primary schools needed to 'tread with a lot of care', after she was asked if five-year-olds should be allowed to identify as the opposite sex.

She was put on the spot after her department published long-awaited trans guidance for schools which waters down rules proposed by the Tories that would have banned primary schools from changing pupils' pronouns.

Asked on LBC radio on Tuesday if she was comfortable with the idea a five-year-old deciding that 'he is a she', Ms Phillipson replied: 'We've been clear that in primary schools, we need to tread with a lot of care.'

Challenged again, she said: 'Well, this was usually where it involves a parent's decision to support their child in that way.'

And pressed on if everyone knows at five 'whether they want to be a man or a woman', she replied that this point had been addressed by Baroness Cass in her landmark review of gender identity services for young people.

'That in allowing children just to consider who they are, to behave in ways that might not be aligned with their sex, their gender.

'So if a boy wants to wear dresses, we should just… if we allow that to work. Children will experiment at different points. They will consider who they are.

'Just taking a watchful approach, not coming down too hard on that, actually reduces what we see in terms of children moving towards a more medicalised model.'

She added: 'I think it would be exceptionally rare for primary schools to be operating that. But I've also been clear that in anything in that space, unless there are very strong safeguarding reasons where a child is at risk of harm, parents should be involved in those important decisions.'

On Tuesday night Shadow Equalities Minister Claire Coutinho said: 'The Conservatives have been clear, we do not think it is right to allow primary school pupils to socially transition.

'This is not as simple as letting boys wear skirts; it's about people in positions of authority lying to young children, telling them they can change sex at an age when they are too young to grasp the realities and concepts involved.

'Whatever people want to do as an adult, is not a decision for when they're a child. We have to protect childhood.'

And Reform UK's equalities spokesman Suella Braverman said: 'A Reform UK government would ban social and gender transitioning absolutely in all schools.

'That Labour are facilitating and entertaining this dangerous ideology is sickening for parents who just want schools to be a place of learning rather than indoctrination.'