Fire Safety: School Buildings

Caroline Ansell Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) on his impassioned argument. The sprinkler campaign has a doughty champion in him.

It is ironic that I am to speak about fire today, when the top news headline in my constituency is about the Eastbourne pier fire. Many hon. Members may have seen some of the coverage—indeed, it was so dramatic and gripping that it went across the globe. Even the Prime Minister and Chancellor came down to talk to people in the town, such was the shock and trauma of seeing that beautiful and iconic building consumed by flames. It was a powerful visual example of how hungry, dangerous and destructive fire can be. On that occasion it was only the heroic efforts of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, working in conjunction with the fire service, attacking the fire from the sea, that saved much of the pier. Had there been sprinklers, the story might have been different, and we might have saved the building, which is conspicuous by its absence now, its position marked only by a boardwalk.

Last week the main headline in town was an arson attack on a primary school. Again, it is fortunate that there was no loss of life. It happened in the dead of night, and the following morning the community, children, parents and teachers woke to find that the school had been consumed, with 50% of the school buildings destroyed. The school has had a quite challenging journey and very recently came through a successful Ofsted inspection. Its entire focus has been on improving and enhancing the quality of the learning and outcomes for the young children there. Now the head teacher’s everyday life in school is taken up with meetings with insurance brokers, risk assessors, insurance adjusters and building contractors. The teachers, although they are hugely ingenious and massively resourceful, will be sorely pressed to do full justice to the children’s learning. Some are back on the school campus; others have been shipped out to another local primary school, which has opened its doors so that learning can continue. The point I want to make is that there has been massive disruption, which was not limited to the occasion of the fire. It will continue for months to come.

I am not new to schools, having qualified as a head teacher a few years ago, but I am new to the sprinkler debate, for want of a better term. I am very aware of demands on school budgets and on county councils for everything they have to provide. I am just beginning to understand some of the wider issues to do with the installation of sprinklers and the other measures. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West will be horrified to learn that of my county’s 190 schools, five have sprinkler systems. However, in the past five years there have been just three incidents—all very random and none causing destruction of property or life. It is a shame that safety seems to be driven only by casualties or fatalities, but, sadly, that seems to be the case.

I am still finding my form in the debate, but I have asked the county council for a full report on the state of play in school fire safety, and I have a question for my hon. Friend the Minister. I want to understand why sprinkler provision in schools is mandatory in Scotland and Wales, but not in England.