Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Robin Walker

Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that further. I recognise the enormous importance of engineering—and, of course, essential to that is the numeracy skills that underpin it. That is one reason why we are so prioritising numeracy.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Russell Scott Primary School in Denton has been dubbed by the national media as:

“Britain’s worst built school where pupils paddle in sewage and get sick from toxic fumes.”

I raised this issue previously and Baroness Barran has now suggested a bid to the Department for Education for funding. Tameside Council is in the process of doing that, but it really should not be subject to a competitive process. I hope the bid will be looked on favourably by Ministers. It is crucial, it is levelling up, it is offering the best educational opportunities in safe buildings, is it not?

[Mr Walker]

I knew the hon. Gentleman would persist and ensure he got his point on the record. I recognise that he has consistently raised this school and I welcome the fact that a bid will be coming in. Of course that has to be assessed, but he makes the case very strongly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Robin Walker

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

I share my right hon. Friend’s passion for ensuring that children are in school. I have discussed with the Children’s Commissioner the designation of “ghost children”, which we both feel is somewhat unhelpful. These are flesh and blood children who deserve to be in school and have the chance to benefit from face-to-face education. I assure him that addressing attendance and ensuring that they all have the opportunity to be safely in school is a top priority.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I, too, want children to be taught in safe spaces. That brings me yet again to the plight of Russell Scott Primary School in Denton, where, as the Minister knows, a botched £2.7 million refurbishment by Carillion has left the school with wrecked footings; a leaking roof; defective fire safety measures; inadequate drainage that floods the school with raw sewage; and playing fields that still resemble the Somme. It needs £5 million for that to be put right, or a new build. Baroness Barran wrote to me last week and basically said, “Tough—there’s no money.” That is not acceptable, is it? This is not levelling up. Let us get the purse strings opened and rebuild Russell Scott.

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Gentleman is clearly a champion for that school—he has made the case for it many times before. I would be surprised if that was the content of my noble Friend’s letter, because a programme is due to open shortly, as he will know. Of course, we cannot pre-empt the programme, but I know that he has made a strong case for his school.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Robin Walker

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Three months ago, I raised the appalling conditions at Russell Scott Primary School in Denton, which the Daily Mirror dubbed

“Britain’s worst built school where pupils paddle in sewage and get sick from toxic fumes”,

after a botched £5 million refurbishment by Carillion. What progress have Department for Education officials made with Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council to get the school urgently rebuilt?

[Mr Robin Walker]

I remember well the hon. Gentleman’s Westminster Hall debate on this issue. We continue to work with Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council. In that debate, he put in a bid for the next round of the priority school building programme, and, as I mentioned earlier, we are consulting on our approach to that.

School Building Conditions

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Robin Walker

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Gentleman speaks from his enormous experience and he raises a sensible point. It is for the Department to work with local authorities and the various commissioning bodies to ensure they are working with the most reputable people. We all know—and successive Governments have worked with—some businesses that do not succeed.

In the case of Carillion, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish has given some shocking examples of the way it behaved, particularly with regard to the playing fields. That should not have been the case. The hon. Gentleman has raised the condition issues facing a specific primary school in his constituency. I understand the challenge the school is facing with its buildings, many as a result of the refurbishment and the expansion carried out by the local authority with Carillion in 2015, about three years before the company went into liquidation.

I recognise that Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council can no longer pursue Carillion for redress on that project, following its liquidation in 2018. It has invested its own capital funding to address issues at the school over recent years. As the hon. Gentleman said, the former Parliamentary Under-Secretary with responsibility for the school system recently met him and representatives from the council to discuss those issues. I have been speaking to her successor today. I alerted her to the debate and can assure the hon. Gentleman that she is determined to deliver for the school system in a way that achieves value for money but also delivers according to need.

Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council has assured us that the school is currently safe and operational. I know, however, that a number of issues remain, such as leaking roofs, uneven floors, inadequately installed fire doors and, most significantly, the inadequate drainage that has led to repeated flooding. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Department will continue to engage with the council and, where appropriate, with the Environment Agency and local water boards to consider the wider level of surface water flood risk within the schools and what support would be required. We look forward to reviewing the detailed condition reports from the council once they have been submitted. I checked with officials ahead of the debate: we have not seen them yet, but we are certainly happy to make sure that they are properly engaged with.

I reassure the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish that the Government treat every school throughout England on a consistent basis. As I will set out, our condition funding and rebuilding programmes are targeted at schools in the worst condition, regardless of which constituency they are in and whether they are academy trusts or local authority maintained.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I perfectly accept what the Minister is saying, but does he recognise that one of the flaws of the condition survey is that it is basically sending somebody to look at the school? Aesthetically, Russell Scott looks modern—fit for purpose, wonderful—but we do not have to scratch very hard to see that that is not really the case. However, it was given an A grading by the school condition survey.

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point; I was just coming to that. Our school condition allocations are based on a consistent way, regarding the relative condition of schools. The data provides a consistent picture of relative condition, helping to inform funding allocations. We recognise, though, that it is a non-invasive survey and that does not assess structural issues, for example, which appear to be the issue in this case. It is not intended to be a substitute for the more detailed condition reports that local authorities use to prioritise investment across their schools, based on local knowledge.

We are currently consulting on the approach to prioritising schools for future rounds of the new school rebuilding programme and we expect there to be opportunities for evidence of severe condition needs to be submitted for consideration for that programme. More broadly, I am pleased that six schools in Tameside have benefited from new or refurbished buildings through the Department’s priority school rebuilding programme. In 2021-22, Tameside council also received an annual school condition allocation of £1.3 million to address condition issues at its schools and, over the past five years, it has received £9.1 million in total.[Official Report, 23 September 2021, Vol. 701, c. 2MC.] In February 2021, we announced that Tameside will receive £6.3 million to provide new school places needed in 2023.

Northern Ireland Protocol: Implementation Proposals

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Robin Walker

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he is right to pay tribute to his constituency predecessor in this respect. The Good Friday agreement has always been a careful balance of the interests of the communities in Northern Ireland and the importance of east-west and north-south co-operation. It is vital in delivering the protocol that all parties should continue to respect that.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]]

Peter MacSwiney, the chief executive of a customs agency, has said there is a

“totally unacceptable level of risk”

in getting the vital customs declaration service ready for 1 January and that it risks paralysing all of Northern Ireland’s trade movements. Ministers were warned in summer 2019 that industry will need a year to test, trial and implement this new system, so how can it be right, with 43 days left, that the final version has still not been delivered?

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Gentleman will recognise that, when we talk about customs, the protocol is there, in part, to ensure the absence of customs requirements on goods going between GB and Northern Ireland and on goods coming from Northern Ireland into GB. It is essential that we deliver on that. His question on implementation could perhaps more appropriately be discussed with Treasury Ministers. However, I refer him to the point I made in my statement about the IT systems being on track.