Safety of School Buildings

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

I am confident that, because we started early, we have done a lot of these surveys already. Quite a lot of the schools were involved at the beginning, so I am confident of that. I am also confident that the NHS has conducted surveys of its main buildings, and I think the courts have also done surveys. However, we have now increased the number of surveying companies from three to eight to make sure that we can get through all the cases, including any that Members are concerned about, as soon as possible.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

Back in January this year, I submitted a written question to the Government about the number of schools in my constituency of Wirral West that had buildings rated as very likely to collapse. In the response I received, the Schools Minister said:

“Department officials are clear that there are no areas within schools open to pupils where there is a known immediate risk of collapse.”

Presumably those buildings would be evacuated if that was the case—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I appreciate that the Secretary of State has been very generous in giving way to Members, but she will not be as aware as I am that there are 22 people who wish to speak this afternoon. The Secretary of State is very politely giving way to Members who are not going to take part in the debate, and if we have long interventions from those Members, people who are waiting to speak will not have the chance to do so when we come to the end of the debate. I am trying to get some fairness into this, but I do appreciate that the Secretary of State is being polite and I will allow her to respond to the intervention.