School Rebuilding Programme

Debate between Mike Amesbury and Mary Kelly Foy

Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered rollout of the School Rebuilding Programme.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Miller. I am grateful that this debate has been granted as it is of great importance to my constituency and, I imagine, that of every Member here today.

Shortly after I was elected to represent City of Durham in 2019, one of the first items that came across my desk was a letter from Andy Byers, headteacher at Framwellgate School, inviting me to visit the school to see for myself the condition that it was in—and I was appalled.

Framwellgate School was built in the 1960s and, sadly, it shows. The school is too small, and cannot grow to meet the needs of an expanding pupil population and changing curriculum. It is spread across multiple blocks and has no social space for pupils. An increasing number of pupils need more specialist provision and more space. The upper floors have no disabled access and are not compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. I have not even mentioned that the site is extremely prone to flooding.

However, as frustrating as it was to see the learning environment for pupils in my constituency, it was even more frustrating that Framwellgate School had already been approved for a rebuild in 2009 under the previous Labour Government, who recognised the poor condition of the school and its potential impact on the education of young people in Durham. Sadly, in the year after the coalition Government came to power, plans for a rebuild were promptly scrapped by the then Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove). Now, 12 years after it was first allocated for a rebuild, the school has been overlooked for two rounds of funding under the current scheme, despite many of the issues that first made it eligible for a rebuild getting worse. Framwellgate School’s case is truly a desperate one.

I applied for this debate because the problems are not limited to a single school. I have had almost identical discussions as those with Mr Byers with the headteachers across the constituency. I have spoken extensively with Mr Hammill at St Leonard’s, which is similarly overdue a rebuild. The roof is in a shocking condition. Like Fram, it has extremely limited disabled access, and the very fabric of the building is completely inefficient. On top of that, one primary school head wrote to me with a shocking analysis of her school:

“Our school is in a dreadful state—the classrooms are poorly ventilated and are freezing in winter and boiling in summer. Our junior yard is not stable, tree root damage is prolific, our drains block regularly, we have ever increasing cracks in the walls and the floors, leaks under the floor and from the roof in some places, rising damp, a lifting hall floor.... I could go on!”

I cannot imagine how frustrating it must be for educators, pupils and parents who share the same goal of wanting every child to have the best possible start in life, only for their efforts to be limited by the poor condition of many of our schools. Whenever I have visited a school in Durham, I have been struck by the dedication and passion of the staff, and the inquisitive and talented pupils.

I have witnessed at first hand the role that our schools play in the community and the effort that they put into the wellbeing of children in Durham. Yet, when the Minister hears stories of flooded classrooms, overcrowded schools, rising damp and poor ventilation, can they honestly say that the pupils at those schools are learning in the best possible environment? Ministers are always happy to talk about levelling up in the vaguest possible terms, but they cannot claim to have come close to levelling up the north-east until the children in our region have the same life chances as those in the wealthiest regions. That can be done only by transforming the infrastructure and resources across our region, and much of that has to start in our schools.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Of course, the Levelling Up Secretary of State is the same person as the Education Secretary who vandalised our schools up and down the country, and cancelled the Building Schools for the Future programme. Will my hon. Friend confirm that that was vandalism and levelling down at its worst?

[Mary Kelly Foy]

I had not realised it was the same Secretary of State. Given his agenda to level up, I would have thought that if he understood what was going on in schools, he would start to rebuild them. That would be an excellent start, especially in the north-east, which is very much in need of levelling up, whatever that might be.

The state of Framwellgate School and St Leonard’s in Durham is the perfect yardstick for the Government’s pledge to level up the north-east. Given that Framwellgate was first selected for a rebuild under the previous Labour Government more than a decade ago, can the Minister honestly say that education has improved in the City of Durham? The Government cannot even commit to rebuilding a school that the Labour Government pledged to rebuild in 2009.

We have had 12 years of Conservative Government, and the condition of many of our schools continues to deteriorate. The school is not asking for a lot—only for what it was promised. In comparison, let us consider the case of Belmont Church of England Primary School and Belmont Community School, which were allocated funding for a new, state-of-the-art joint campus under the then Labour-run Durham County Council. That goes to show the difference that Labour makes when we are in power.

Before I go on, I extend an invitation to the Minister present or to the Minister for School Standards, when he watches the debate later: come to Durham, please. Let me show them the condition of some of the schools in Durham, such as Framwellgate School, so that they can see for themselves the conditions that many of our children have to learn in and many of our staff have to work in. If it rains the night before, though, they might want to bring their wellies.

I will speak about the roll-out of the school rebuilding programme more broadly. I have a number of concerns, many of which have been expressed to me by headteachers in Durham. The first is the lack of transparency in the first stages of the programme regarding how and in what order funding is awarded, and the difficulties that that has caused to schools. After consulting headteachers in Durham last year, I called for a list ranking the conditions of all applicant schools to be published, so that each school could see where they were in the queue for a rebuild and their need compared with that of other schools.

That would combat the growing concern among headteachers that schools in electorally advantageous constituencies are being targeted for building projects. Such concerns are driven by the lack of transparency in the process, with unclear criteria and unpublished condition data collection reports. That is not helped by the superficial nature of CDC surveys, which are simply not fit for purpose. I know for a fact that Framwellgate School felt it necessary to invest in its own intrusive surveys to demonstrate the issues of electrics, drainage and so on, and to show its extreme need.

In addition, many heads are frustrated at having to apply to the condition improvement fund to carry out refurbishments, repairs and maintenance when they are held to account by the Department for Education for not maintaining their buildings or the site, while also trying to avoid limiting funding opportunities for a new build. I have been told explicitly by one headteacher that the two schemes conflict and the process is not joined up.

Heads point out that they could apply for and receive funding to repair the roofs of their school, only to find a year later that they had been successful in their school rebuilding programme bid. That has meant, potentially, a massive waste of public money, especially if the amount of CIF investment will turn a school that is in need of a rebuild into one that is fit for purpose. Schools continue to age and decline, reducing the impact of maintenance funding. Countless schools have exceeded the life of their buildings, resulting in the Government throwing good money after lost causes when it could go towards a new build.

The final issue that has been raised with me in my discussions with headteachers is that, even when headteachers are successful with a bid, they will receive an off-the-shelf school with little scope for a joined-up approach that meets the specific needs of the school or the community. With that in mind, I have some questions for the Minister about the design of schools under the programme.

First, how much scope is there for schools and communities to input into the design of a school and can other funding from local authorities, such as that resulting from the sale of land, be incorporated? Secondly, what have the Government learned from the pandemic about ensuring adequate ventilation and air-cleaning in buildings, and will that learning be incorporated into the design of new builds? Similarly, what have they learned from the pandemic about supporting teachers with the technology that they need, and how will such technology be incorporated into new buildings? Finally, how does the Government’s school rebuilding work tie in with their work on achieving net zero and their manifesto commitment on retrofitting public buildings?

The Government will no doubt point to the size of the rebuild programme and will argue that it is simply not possible immediately to fund a rebuild for every school in need. However, there must be recognition that the decision to scrap the Building Schools for the Future scheme has meant that schools that were already in need of rebuild are still in desperate need, while schools that previously could have waited for work are now in similar states of disrepair, creating an even greater need across the country. It will therefore be of little consolation to my constituents in Durham to hear that a school on the other side of England will receive a rebuild while their local school fails and falls further into disrepair, damaging the life chances of the children who attend it.

I truly hope that the Government listen to the concerns of Members present here today, and ensure that every child in Durham—indeed, every child across the country—has access to a school building that is fit to learn in.