School Buildings: Northumberland and Newcastle

Lee Pitcher Excerpts

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Joe Morris]

My hon. Friend is a passionate advocate for his constituency and for the north of the county. Too often schools in Northumberland have been victims of the mañana attitude of Northumberland county council. For far too long, whether it is on this or on SEND—special educational needs and disabilities—transport, the council has been asleep at the wheel when it comes to issues affecting the children of Northumberland.

The structural issues at the school have damaged not only the community but the children’s education. One thing that really stuck out to me was a quote from a former Conservative Education Minister saying that those schools were built

“one third cheaper per square metre on average than schools built under the Building Schools for the Future Programme”,

which was Labour’s flagship programme. Educational services should not just be used for political gain when our country and our county’s young people depend on them. The students of Prudhoe deserve and need a safe place to continue their education. They need it in the short term, and they need it in the long term.

When a report was leaked to The Observer that a senior official at the Department for Education had described the “upcoming risk” three years ago that many schools were in such disrepair that they were a “risk to life”, I do not believe that a newly rebuilt community high school in Prudhoe was one of the ones at the top of their minds. The school’s facilities were described as fantastic when it reopened, and they were a welcome investment, but it is clear that something has gone seriously wrong. I completely take the point made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about the need to look at a warranty. For my generation, a warranty is something we consider for a mobile phone, not a public institution like a school, but clearly something needs to be done.

I would really like the Minister to reflect on what can be done to investigate how this went so badly wrong and how this community was let down, because the students of PCHS deserve nothing more. They deserve better. They deserve, at the very least, an apology. To experience a school closing for an indeterminate period of time is a disruption that no student should have to experience. It uproots lives, derails routine and destabilises students. No child should have to go through this. No parent should be forced to watch their child go through this. As the hon. Member for Strangford indicated, school is not just a building where children learn; it is a building where children should feel safe, supported and at home.

[Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)]

I have had a visit today from students at St Wilfrid’s school in Branton—the 17th, of the 43 schools in my constituency, that I have seen or visited—and they spoke about the fabric of the school, and of the importance of the buildings to ensuring not just that students have the right learning environment, but that teachers, parents and the community can feel proud to have a place where children can thrive. The fabric of the building is really important for education. Would my hon. Friend agree that we need to do something for all schools across the country to ensure that their fabric is maintained and looked after?

[Joe Morris]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Like him, I have done my best to visit as many schools in the constituency as I can—having said that, I can feel letters coming in from headteachers to suggest that I have not yet got around to visiting. The fabric of the schools is important. Ensuring that schools feel invested in is important, whether they are the smaller schools in my constituency like Kielder, which is incredibly small and has a tightly focused and tight-knit group of young people and staff, or some of the larger schools—or, indeed, some of the schools out of my constituency, in Newcastle, attended by some children from Callerton and Throckley.

Some of the damage done to the community in Prudhoe is due to the feeling that they were led up the garden path. Prudhoe is an incredible community. It is one of the shining lights of the Tyne valley. It is one of the best places to visit, and to be, in my constituency, although all towns in the Tyne valley are excellent. It deserves so much more—it deserves a Rolls-Royce of a school—but not only was the last Labour Government’s Building Schools for the Future programme scrapped; the replacement programme appears poorly crafted at best.

I want briefly to mention another school in my constituency. Haydon Bridge high school has a dedicated teaching force and a headteacher, in David Nisbet, who works tirelessly for his community and is focused on innovative ways of improving the school, on employability, on moving forward and improving outcomes for students. I do not want to mislead the House, but I believe the school serves a catchment area larger than the M25. The challenges for such a rural school are massive. I visited the school fairly recently and we discussed some of the challenges it faced, including getting adequate funds and support. It did get some minor investment under the last Government, which is obviously welcome—don’t get me wrong—but it did not touch the sides of what was needed. I would like to see Northumberland county council do something about the state of the toilets in that school, which the headteacher told me was the No. 1 issue raised by the student voice. These are little things that could be done; it is a council-maintained school, and the council should step in and take action.

There is a list of inadequacies in the backing provided to those schools—I could go on. How could these conditions for a school building, and inadequate investment, possibly foster an educational environment that helps students to reach their full potential? I want to draw attention to the work of the RISE programme. I had some correspondence with the head of Haydon Bridge, who recognised that the contextual support that Haydon Bridge high school is now getting—that is mindful of its hyper-rural, hyper-sparsely populated location—is welcome. That contextual support, in relation to schools’ structural elements and the socioeconomic make-up of their student bodies, is necessary.

What I have been saying is applicable not just to PCHS and Haydon Bridge high school, but to every school building throughout Northumberland, Newcastle and the north-east that was on the receiving end of 14 years of Conservative neglect. Throughout my constituency, we have wonderful teachers who adapt to the diverse needs of the communities they teach, from the western edge of Newcastle and places like Throckley, and the towns and villages of the Tyne valley, to the most remote communities in the Allen valleys and north Tyne. All those teachers are striving to ensure that their pupils have the best possible start in life. It is only right that their dedication and hard work is delivered in buildings that are fit for the present and for the future.

I will continue to speak up for our young people to ensure that they access not only the education they need, but the education they deserve. I will continue to give a voice to Northumberland, Newcastle and the north-east more broadly. Chronic underfunding, deliberate neglect and thoughtless oversight is what the Conservative contempt for the west of Northumberland brought during 100 years of domination, but that needs to end with this Labour Government.

I once again thank the Department for Education for their dedication and commitment to supporting the community of Prudhoe; I thank Sunderland College for its gracious hospitality in hosting the staff and students of Prudhoe community high school in its Washington campus; and I thank the teachers and staff of PCHS for doing everything they possibly could so students could continue accessing their education, and for reassuring parents during a very difficult transition. Most of all, I pay tribute to the community of Prudhoe and to the councillors who have worked particularly hard, including Angie Scott and Lawrence O’Donnell, who have been fantastic voices for their community during a fraught time.

I am grateful for those who did not jump in and immediately seek to politicise the matter or score points when the news about Prudhoe community high school first broke. Although it is important that we look at this situation in context and at the damage done by the poor decisions made by the previous Government, this is not about scoring points; it is about getting a fair deal for a community that has suffered for too long. It is time that the previous Government are held to account for their failure and neglect, and that starts with what happened to the students and staff at Prudhoe community high school.