Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings

Debate between Gillian Keegan and Stephanie Peacock

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I was a teacher at a secondary school when the Building Schools for the Future funding was cut by the Conservative-led Government in 2010. Has the Department for Education carried out an assessment comparing schools that had their BSF funding cut with those that have RAAC?

[Gillian Keegan]

Yes, I have, and there are not very many. There are two things that we need to know about Building Schools for the Future. The first is that it was not based on condition, and the second is that it did not include a single primary school. Many of the schools that we have identified—156 of them—are primary schools. I was not involved in the Building Schools for the Future programme, but I have looked at it in great detail. I remember it from growing up in Knowsley. The schools that were built did not contain a single classroom wall. Known locally as the “wacky warehouses”, they cost a fortune and then cost millions to put right afterwards. I point the hon. Lady to the James review, which was pretty scathing about the programme, saying that it was bureaucratic, that it failed to deliver—I think it delivered 180 schools—that it was not based on condition and that it built wacky warehouses in Knowsley.