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David Laws, the UK schools minister, will argue for changes to the system instituted by Michael Gove, the former education secretary. Photograph: Richard Gardner/Rex

Councils would regain powers to intervene in struggling academy schools, reversing the trend of increasing autonomy, under radical proposals from schools minister David Laws.

The Liberal Democrat minister will argue in a speech on Thursday that the system of school governance introduced by former education secretary Michael Gove has abandoned schools that converted from local authority control to standalone academy status and now find themselves without the resources or support they need to improve.

Laws wants responsibility for improvements to be handed from the Department for Education to a middle tier of local authorities and academy chains, backed by successful schools and headteachers who will be rewarded for helping local underperforming peers. This proposed middle tier would potentially assist all schools in need of improvement, not just academies.

No government is ever going to magic away every single weak school, that would be a delusion. But I think in a good and realistic scenario, where we had an effective middle tier, we would have 2,000 fewer schools in the [lowest] categories of requiring improvement or special measures, Laws said.

Potentially hundreds of thousands of pupils would be getting a much better education as a result.

More than 4,000 primary and secondary schools are currently rated requires improvement or inadequate out of 19,000 mainstream schools in England. Laws says if those schools were overseen by one of the best local authorities or academy chains, 1,900 would be rated inadequate or requires improvement.

The announcement,which follows Labours proposals to penalise private schools that fail to aid the state sector, is a sign that education is a hotly contested political issue ahead of the next general election.

Tristram Hunts plans to remove council tax breaks enjoyed by independent schools if they didnt partner with state schools were dismissed by Laws, though he admitted it was disappointing that some private schools didnt do more.

My main thought is that this is really a side issue in relation to all the big issues that are going to drive state school improvements, Laws said. When I look at it against teacher quality, funding, early years education, system leadership its going to make a tiny impact. I think this is another example of Tristram pursuing things which are side issues rather than having something to say about the really big debates in education.

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Schools minister seeks powers to intervene at struggling academies