These levels vary widely across the country to the extent that some authorities should be "ashamed", said the minister, who is seeking to cut the rate of exclusions and truancy by a third in four years.

In Portsmouth and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham the figures show an expulsion rate nine times higher than in Stockton and Rotherham.

The spread of exclusions shows that those authorities most and least likely to exclude pupils are as likely to be in inner-city areas as in wealthier or rural areas.

The present annual total for exclusions is estimated at 13,000 pupils a year.

The highest levels of exclusions in local education authorities, running at more than twice the average for England are:

Portsmouth
Hammersmith and Fulham
Newcastle upon Tyne
Westminster
Wandsworth
Barking and Dagenham
Camden
Stoke
Waltham Forest
Bristol
Croydon
Doncaster
Richmond upon Thames

The lowest levels of exclusions are in:

Rotherham
Yorkshire (East Riding)
Buckinghamshire
Calderdale
Barnsley
Oxfordshire
Knowsley
Merton
Newham
Redbridge

The full breakdown of school exclusions shows the regional average and individual figure for each authority in England, expressed as a percentage of the school population.

North East 0.16

Hartlepool 0.14

Middlesbrough 0.10

Redcar and Cleveland 0.11

Stockton-on-Tees 0.05

Durham 0.12

Darlington 0.22

Northumberland 0.17

Gateshead 0.10

Newcastle-upon-Tyne 0.33

North Tyneside 0.22

South Tyneside 0.30

Sunderland 0.10

Cheshire 0.12

Cumbria 0.14

Bolton 0.21

Bury 0.23

Manchester 0.27

Oldham 0.16

Rochdale 0.13

Salford 0.28

Stockport 0.16

Tameside 0.16

Trafford 0.10

Wigan 0.15

Lancashire 0.18

Knowsley 0.09

Liverpool 0.29

St Helens 0.12

Sefton 0.17

Wirral 0.13

East Riding of Yorkshire 0.06

City of Kingston-Upon-Hull 0.15

North East Lincolnshire 0.15

North Lincolnshire 0.13

North Yorkshire 0.10

York 0.24

Barnsley 0.09

Doncaster 0.30

Rotherham 0.05

Sheffield 0.18

Bradford 0.20

Calderdale 0.07

Kirklees 0.09

Leeds 0.17

Wakefield 0.18

Derbyshire 0.12

Derby 0.29

Leicestershire 0.10

Leicester City 0.24

Rutland 0.23

Lincolnshire 0.15

Northamptonshire 0.15

Nottinghamshire 0.19

West Midlands 0.17

Hereford and Worcester 0.14

Shropshire 0.24

Staffordshire 0.11

Stoke 0.31

Warwickshire 0.15

Birmingham 0.18

Coventry 0.21

Dudley 0.13

Sandwell 0.26

Solihull 0.14

Walsall 0.15

Wolverhampton 0.18

Eastern 0.13

Bedfordshire 0.12

Luton 0.14

Cambridgeshire 0.14

Essex 0.12

Herefordshire 0.17

Norfolk 0.14

Suffolk 0.12

London 0.22

City of London

Camden 0.32

Hackney 0.16

Hammersmith & Fulham 0.45

Haringey 0.15

Islington 0.19

Kensington & Chelsea 0.24

Lambeth 0.24

Lewisham 0.18

Newham 0.09

Southwark 0.28

Tower Hamlets 0.18

Wandsworth 0.33

Westminster 0.33

Barking & Dagenham 0.32

Barnet 0.20

Bexley 0.17

Brent 0.27

Bromley 0.23

Croydon 0.30

Ealing 0.22

Enfield 0.22

Greenwich 0.22

Harrow 0.21

Havering 0.16

Hillingdon 0.18

Hounslow 0.27

Kingston-upon-Thames 0.18

Merton 0.09

Redbridge 0.09

Richmond-upon-Thames 0.30

Sutton 0.13

Waltham Forest 0.31

South East 0.17

Berkshire 0.19

Buckinghamshire 0.07

Milton Keynes 0.11

East Sussex 0.20

Brighton & Hove 0.19

Hampshire 0.20

Portsmouth 0.45

Southampton 0.29

Isle of Wight 0.10

Kent 0.19

Oxfordshire 0.08

Surrey 0.14

West Sussex 0.15

South West 0.14

Bath & NE Somerset 0.19

City of Bristol 0.30

North Somerset 0.20

South Gloucestershire 0.16

Cornwall 0.10

Isle of Scilly

Devon 0.10

Dorset 0.14

Poole 0.11

Bournemouth 0.14

Gloucestershire 0.18

Somerset 0.14

Wiltshire 0.11

Swindon 0.10