MSPs have narrowly voted in favour of halting national assessments for P1 pupils – with Education Secretary John Swinney now facing calls to respect the will of Parliament and ditch the controversial tests.

After a heated debate, Holyrood voted by 63 to 61 for a Conservative motion, demanding the Scottish Government halt the use of standardised national assessments for four and five-year-olds.

Tory education spokeswoman Liz Smith said afterwards: “The Scottish Parliament has voted decisively on this matter, and now the SNP government must act on that.”

Mr Swinney said he would “consider” the result of the vote and “make a Parliamentary statement in due course”.

He added the Scottish Government “still believes assessment is an important part of improvement agenda” and advised schools to “continue with their existing plans” for the assessments.

The vote came after Allison Skerrett, a professor at the University of Texas who is one of the Scottish Government’s International Council of Education Advisers, said of the tests: “It’s early to decide that something is not working.”

She insisted the council “generally support the ways in which the assessments have been delivered and the purposes for which they are going to be used”.

During the debate Mr Swinney defended the use of the tests for four and five-year-olds, saying: “Assessment is an essential part of a good education system, it is an integral part of effective teaching and learning.”

He explained the standardised assessments – which are also used to measure the performance of youngsters in P4, P7 and S3 – were introduced after the OECD reviewed the Scottish education system in 2015.

“We sought external independent opinion which said that we did not have enough information about learning outcomes and progress,” the Education Secretary said.

“So, we have put in place the standardised assessments.”

And he added: “It is absolutely vital to get as much information as possible on children’s achievement as early as possible.”

However Ms Smith claimed the evidence for testing children in P1 needed to be rexamined.

Calling for a halt to the assessments for this group, she stated: “The SNP is always talking about how important the Scottish Parliament is and how its will must be respected.

“This is the perfect chance for the SNP to do just that.”

That call was echoed by Labour, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats, who had united with the Conservatives to vote against P1 testing.

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said: “Teachers told this government that these tests were useless, ministers ignored them.

“Parents told this government that they do not trust these tests, ministers ignored them.

“The Scottish Parliament has now voted to scrap these tests and SNP ministers must not now ignore the will of Parliament.

“The Government must therefore bring forward immediate plans for how it will respond to this evening’s vote as a matter of urgency.”

Green education spokesman Ross Gree said while a majority of MSPs had joined teachers and others in calling for the tests to be scrapped, “in a fit of arrogance the government seems set to ignore our decision”.

And Liberal Democrat Tavish Scott said: “This is now the ‘will of the Parliament’. The SNP Government must now issue instructions to all schools to cease these tests.”

The SNP however accused opposition politicians of “appaling hypocrisy”, pointing out the Tories had supported testing for P1 pupils in their 2016 Holyrood manifesto.

Gordon MacDonald, a member of the Parliament’s Education Committee, said: “The Scottish Government introduced P1 assessments because they are a tool we need to track kids’ progress and help drive up standards in our schools.

“The Tories put standardised P1 assessments in their manifesto, the vast majority of Tory-run councils across Scotland already assessed kids from P1, so did Labour councils and likewise the Lib Dems.

“Labour and the Lib Dems have sided with the Tories in their political gamesmanship, and sought to prey on the anxieties of parents, just to grab a headline.

“It’s depressing that they all stood willing to do so at the expense of kids’ education.”