Safety of School Buildings

Laura Farris Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

No Member of Parliament would dispute the crucial importance of safe and secure school premises—or indeed all vital premises, whether those are hospitals, courts or prisons—or the fact that they require adequate Government investment. Implicit in the Opposition motion, however, is an allegation that the Conservative Government have failed on education, and failed children more broadly, and that is a charge that I do not accept—nor, in fact, do some of Labour’s most revered figures. Philip Collins, writing in The Times on Monday, said:

“The core case for the government would be in education. Its emphasis on academic knowledge has been salutary.”

He goes on to say that the Conservative

“free school programme created productive experiments in school improvement.”

I can attest to that, because I sent my kids to a free school. He continues:

“The stress on phonics to teach reading”—

introduced in 2010 by the Schools Minister—

“has worked. In 2012, 58 per cent of Year 1 pupils achieved the expected reading level. By 2019, that had risen to 82 per cent.”

Members must be familiar with this by now, but in this year’s progress in international reading literacy study, an international five-yearly assessment, the UK ranked fourth globally and first in the western world for child literacy. The proportion of schools rated good or outstanding by Ofsted has increased from two thirds in 2010, when we came to office, to 90% today. Time is limited, so I will not go on, but the fact is that the quality of children’s education has never been higher because of the reforms introduced by this Conservative Government.

Let me now deal with the issue of buildings. There were good aspects of Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme. St Bartholomew’s School in my constituency was rebuilt as a result of that programme, and I give Labour credit for that. However, the private finance initiative programme was badly lacking. The National Audit Office noted that the building was a third more expensive than it needed to be, and that is not in dispute. The independent James review said in 2011 that Building Schools for the Future had been “time consuming” and

“had an approach that, with hindsight, was expensive and did not get to schools with the greatest need fast enough.”

Given the dire state of the public finances when we came to office, it was right to shelve that scheme. I know that that the note left by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), does the rounds on social media, and Labour Members will groan, but it still blows my mind that a senior member of the last Labour Government thought it was a joke that they had run down the public finances in that way. To them, the interests of the public were somehow derisory, and secondary to the primary objective of thumbing their nose at the incoming Conservative Government who had just won a general election.

I entirely disagree with the claim that the Conservatives have put nothing in place of that programme. In the three and a half years in which I have represented my constituency, a brilliant new primary school, Highwood Copse, has opened in the south of Newbury. Two more, Francis Baily Primary and Whiteland Park Primary in Thatcham, have received significant funds for badly needed overhauls. Three secondary schools, Trinity, Park House and Kennet, have also received significant funds; in fact, only one secondary school has not received money. John O’Gaunt, a secondary in Hungerford, was one of the 239 schools selected for funding from the Government’s £1.8 billion school rebuilding programme in September. I have watched school premises in my constituency improve significantly, so I know that the money is there.

Finally, I want to align myself with what was said by the Chair of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker). I know from working closely with my local headteachers that they need information and transparency. I respect the Secretary of State for taking a difficult decision in the light of information that became available, but I would also say that the information published today reveals a more positive picture than was first feared. More than 100 of the 156 schools affected—less than 0.5% of the total of 22,000 in the country—are already back in operation, and running face-to-face teaching. Only four are currently online. I do not like online teaching; it did not work very well for my kids. I understand from what the Prime Minister said that we are talking about a matter of days or weeks, so I ask the Secretary of State for transparency and a clear timeline for those schools.

The shadow Secretary of State for Education said that the symbol of 13 years of a Conservative Government was children cowering under concrete blocks, but the enduring image of 13 years of a Conservative Government is higher levels of academic excellence than have ever been achieved by any Government, and that would be impossible under anyone other than the Conservatives.