Safety of School Buildings

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I do hope that the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe) is okay. I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the House for allowing me to go and lead a Westminster Hall debate just now; that is why I was out of the Chamber for 30 minutes. The crumbling concrete crisis is one that I first raised with the Secretary of State on the Floor of the House back in January. It is extremely damaging for several reasons. It is not just because anxious parents have had to tell their children why their schools are shut, or drive them to alternative sites. It is not just because children’s learning has been disrupted yet again, with some eating lunch in marquees or going to the toilet in portacabins. It is a concrete sign of a Government who have given up on communities up and down the country.

For many families, the school is the public service that they interact with most. When parents read about crumbling concrete; when the parent-teacher association has to fundraise for basic repairs and maintenance; and when the local school’s rebuilding plans are rejected year after year, they know that the Government have let them down and taken them for granted. Just consider how that makes our young people feel. If their classroom has buckets in various corners; if they spend all day in a coat because the boiler is broken; or, worse, if their school closes altogether, the message that they hear is that they do not matter—that their education, their future, is not worth investing in.

When the announcement was made, parents looked to the Conservative Government for three things: empathy, responsibility and leadership. I am sorry to say that they have provided none of them. A Government with empathy would not put out a social media advert saying that “most schools are unaffected”. Instead, they would tell concerned parents that one school with risky RAAC was one too many.

This may be just the tip of the iceberg. Some schools in Twickenham and Richmond are awaiting surveys. Other councils are wading through the guidance and complaining that the DfE has lost the questionnaires they have sent in. Pupils just over the river from my constituency at St Paul’s Primary School in Thames Ditton, at Langney Primary Academy in Eastbourne, or at the Royal College Manchester in Cheadle will now want the Government to give them a concrete timeline on when their at-risk buildings will be repaired.

An Education Secretary who understood collective responsibility would take the flak for her Government’s failings, not pass the buck and fish for compliments. A Prime Minister who showed leadership would listen to his officials and invest in our children. Is it “completely and utterly wrong” to blame him for the crisis? Let me ask this: who was Chancellor in 2022, when, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the three-year average spend on education capital was at its lowest since 2004? Who was Chancellor when education officials told the Treasury that it would cost £5 billion to mitigate the most serious risks of building failure, yet signed off only two thirds of that amount? Who was the Chancellor who was told to build more than 200 schools a year but approved only 50? It was the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak). These penny-pinching tactics are coming back to bite him, yet even now, the Treasury will not stump up new cash to remove the RAAC; it is putting off repairs to other dilapidated school buildings.

Every crumbling classroom stands as a concrete sign of years of Conservative neglect of our children and our communities. Of course, pupil safety is paramount and unsafe classrooms should be shut, but we should never have got to this point. This crisis was years in the making.

Liberal Democrats know that when we invest in the fabric of our schools, we invest in our children’s future. Our nurseries, schools and colleges should have been treated as critical infrastructure, yet too often with this Government, children are an afterthought. Liberal Democrats would have invested in our schools, removing risky RAAC and clearing the backlog of school repairs.

In May, I told the House:

“Neglecting school and college buildings endangers our children and may well contribute to this Government’s downfall.”—[Official Report, 23 May 2023; Vol. 733, c. 249.]

I am sorry to say, on behalf of parents, pupils and school staff, that the chickens are coming home to roost.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before I call the shadow Minister, I want to emphasise how important it is that those who contributed to the debate get back in good time for the wind-ups. There are those who are not here, which is discourteous to the shadow Minister.