Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings

Debate between Gillian Keegan and Kate Osborne

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

We intend to publish management information. As I say, the list that will be published this week will have the initial information about mitigations. We will publish more management information probably from the following week, and then we will regularly update it as cases move on and move off.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

St James Catholic Primary School in my constituency had critical RAAC identified in June. Despite what the Secretary of State told the media this morning, this has not been immediately fixed, and the school is now closed. Ministers and the DFE guidance have been contradictory on funding temporary costs, and the school has been told to fund travel and temporary arrangements itself. This is not acceptable. Can she confirm a timetable for works to make schools safe, and that all costs will be fully funded? Finally, she made it clear earlier today that she does not consider this situation to be her fault or her responsibility, so maybe she can tell us who she thinks has been “sat on their arses”?

[Gillian Keegan]

I made the point to a journalist earlier— an off-the-cuff remark after the interview had finished—but I was responding to the fact that, in effect, the journalist had interviewed me in a way that suggested everything my fault; saying everything in 1994 was my fault, when I was working elsewhere. I pointed this out to the journalist, off the cuff—[Interruption.] No, I am not thin-skinned at all. It was something I said off the cuff.

On that school, which is a much more serious issue, some of the schools on the critical list were closed if they had a large degree of RAAC. Those children should be being accommodated, but if they are not and there is no plan to do so, the Department for Education will be paying for the mitigations that will be put in place.