Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings

Earl Russell Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity for us to discuss the issue of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, or RAAC, which is one of the most pressing issues this country faces in both education and the wider built environment. I declare an interest as London’s Deputy Mayor for Fire and Resilience. I thank the Minister for her time earlier briefing Members of this House; her approach in this regard is much appreciated.

It is clear, however, that this is not the start to term that it should have been for many schools and students, who have already missed too much education over the past few years due to Covid. This is not a new problem. The Government were aware that this was a critical issue in 2018. More could clearly have been done sooner, including putting more resources into tracing information from schools which failed to respond immediately to the government questionnaire.

The Statement from the Secretary of State appears in some ways to play down the scale of the problem, while not playing down the scale of the issue for schools where RAAC has been identified. It is no doubt of small comfort to the schools affected that they are largely in the minority, but the fact is that the number of schools facing this issue is currently unknown, and the figure provided in the Statement is probably a drastic underestimate. The Government need to learn from previous and very recent building safety crises and remember the issues that arose once ACM cladding was identified as a safety concern following the Grenfell Tower fire.

It is clearly right that the risk to children be taken seriously and that affected schools need to close or partially close. However, it is still not clear, despite the Statement, why the assessment of what constituted dangerously critical-grade RAAC was not stronger previously. Can the Minister reassure us that what the Schools Minister described in January this year as visual inspections are now definitely intrusive and sufficient to ensure confidence that the surveys being undertaken provide an accurate picture? Also, what is the additional risk posed by asbestos in the affected buildings?

While we may not choose to use her form of words, the Secretary of State was right to imply that more action may be required of her government colleagues. We also need confidence from this Government that they are taking every action possible to identify the range of buildings this issue affects, and that they will identify new funding to address the crisis and the scandal of failing RAAC. Can the Minister confirm that the Government are engaging fully with the Fire and Rescue Service, other emergency services and local resilience forums on this matter and providing them with the information and guidance they need to respond to and prepare for what must now be an entirely reasonable worst-case scenario involving a major building collapse in a school or other affected buildings?

I know that others will have questions on funding for schools to resolve this issue. However, I note that a recent House of Commons briefing highlighted that between the financial years 2009-10 and 2021-22, capital spending by the Department for Education ranged between a high of £9.8 billion in 2009-10 and a low of £4.9 billion in 2021-22, based on 2022-23 prices. This means that in England, under the current Government, school building funding has declined by around 37% in cash terms and 50% in real terms. By way of contrast, under Labour in Wales, capital funding has increased by around 23% in real terms over the last decade.

This is not just about the identification of schools facing the immediate problem of RAAC; it is also about choices around what to prioritise spending on. This is actually about political choices. How could this situation happen when there were already warnings to government of a critical risk to life? Why did the Prime Minister, when Chancellor, cut the funding intended to address this issue in the 2021 spending review rather than increase it at that point?

I look forward to hearing the wider debate on this and other issues arising from the Statement. I also look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

I thank the Minister for coming to the House today and updating us on this issue. As a parent myself, I am sending a child to a new school. I have every sympathy with parents who are deeply worried about the situation and everything that teachers across the country are doing. If safety had been prioritised over budgets, we would not be in this position today.

The Statement says that, within a matter of weeks, a list of all schools will be published

“once mitigations are in place”.

Although I welcome the change of heart from the Government, does the Minister feel that, with 10% of schools left to conduct surveys, those surveys will be available in a couple of weeks?

Further, the Statement says that the Government will spend “whatever it takes”. This was later clarified as coming from existing educational budgets. Given the scale and urgency of the problem, does the Minister really feel that school budgets alone will be capable of dealing with this problem?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their remarks. I feel that I must start by countering the assertions from the noble Earl that safety has come second to budgets and that budgets have been prioritised over safety. I want to be 100% clear with the House: there is not a single case in which we have known of an immediate risk to life and the department has not acted. We have an urgent capital support fund, which we use in such cases. I want to make it clear on the record that what the noble Earl said is not an accurate reflection of the facts.

The noble Earl also referred to the publication of the list of schools, to which we have committed. To be clear, our priority—I think that many Members of your Lordships’ House would agree with this—was to communicate with parents first. When the names of schools started to leak into the press at the end of last week, one school in particular was so inundated by the media that it was unable to communicate with parents and get on and plan its mitigations. It was a school for children with profound learning difficulties. If there is one school that all of us in this House would want to keep open, it is a school for children with learning difficulties. I really think that there was an extremely good reason why we prioritised that.

I do not recognise the figure of 10% of schools needing to be surveyed. That simply is not accurate. We are confident that in the next few weeks we will be able to complete the surveys that are needed.

The noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, focused significantly on funding and the Chancellor’s statement. The Chancellor was crystal clear in his statement. Let me just run through the funding that we are offering schools immediately. It will cover immediate capital costs relating to, for example, temporary classrooms, propping or whatever else might be needed. It will also cover revenue costs. For example, we will work on a case-by-case basis with schools but, if additional school transport costs arise, we will cover them. If schools need to rent space in another building, we will help with that. All reasonable requests will be dealt with reasonably. Our absolute aim is to remove friction for schools so that they can get children back in classrooms as quickly as possible.

I remind the House that we have, through our various school rebuilding programmes, already rebuilt more than 500 schools since 2010. We have added 1 million new school places to accommodate the increase in the number of pupils. The noble Baroness referred to the track record of the Labour Government in Wales on funding, but I remind the House that we are working with and supporting the Labour Government in Wales and with colleagues in Scotland, because they had not started this survey programme. We are all aiming for the same thing, to resolve this as quickly as possible, but we need to be fair when hurling things around. I am not suggesting that the noble Baroness was not being fair, but I am trying to set the balance. I really commend my predecessor, my noble friend Lady Berridge, and colleagues in the department who have been tireless in working on this issue.

The noble Baroness also questioned whether we could have done more sooner. I do not want to repeat myself but our understanding of how this building material behaves is as good as anyone’s. The new evidence that came out this summer is genuinely new. It is since the end of term that we have become aware of these three cases. I stop and think about the case that happened 10 days ago, and what would have happened if that had happened in 10 days’ time. This Statement would feel very different for us all.

On co-ordinating with fire and rescue services and local resilience forums, I am sure that the noble Baroness will understand that our absolute priority at the moment is working with each individual school. We have about 50 caseworkers working with individual schools. We have project directors going on-site. As soon as we get through this first phase and all children are back in education, we will of course co-ordinate, and the Government will gladly accept any other suggestions that the noble Baroness makes.