School Buildings: Safety

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Tuesday 20th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I want to be absolutely clear to the noble Baroness and the House that the department is not aware of any child or member of staff being in a school which poses an imminent safety risk. We are working as fast as is humanly possible to identify RAAC across the school estate. We sent out a questionnaire last year and nearly 90% of schools and responsible bodies have sent in their initial responses. We are working closely with the structural engineering sector to identify accurately whether RAAC is present and whether it poses a risk.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

Following on from my noble friend’s answer, is she confident that there is enough capacity among surveyors to identify RAAC in schools before, as the noble Baroness said, issues become too serious? We have had similar problems in other parts of the public sector estate, hospitals for instance, where there have been safety issues because of RAAC. Perhaps she could provide us with reassurance on this issue.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her question. I hope it reassures her to know that I have met twice already the leading structural engineering firms. We have looked at different ways that we can accelerate the pace of surveys and are very confident that we will have carried out at least 600 surveys by the autumn.