School Buildings: Safety

Baroness Berridge Excerpts

Tuesday 20th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I can give the House that reassurance. Not only that but any new school we construct will be net zero in operation.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, obviously, responsible bodies are legally responsible for the safety of the building. They come in all shapes and sizes. It could be a very strong, robust local authority or a large multi-academy trust with a lot of expertise; conversely, it could be a local authority that is in intervention with commissioners or a trust which has only one school. Of the 10% which have not returned their surveys, can my noble friend the Minister outline how we are going to approach those responsible bodies to make sure they respond and find out whether they are in that risky category because they are weak for other reasons?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I do not think we can say that the 10% which have not responded are weak. We are dealing with it by running a small call centre in the department. There are organisations that we have had to contact multiple times—including, sadly, some local authorities—and we are working with MPs and others to make sure we get all the returns. We are also supporting, in slightly slower time, all trusts to improve their competency in relation to the management of their estate, including rolling out a free specialist capital adviser programme to support them in estate management.