Safety of School Buildings

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

I am obviously pleased that two schools in my area are to receive funding, announced yesterday, for urgent safeguarding interventions, fire safety compliance and urgent drainage interventions, but I raise to speak not about those schools that received funding but an incident earlier this year where my constituent Carla suffered a serious head injury while dropping off her children at school. With your permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will share Carla’s message to the House. She said:

“I have two boys, aged 9 and 10, at primary school in Sheffield. On the 12th of January a large strip of board around 15 ft long fell off the school and hit me in the face. I had a significant black eye and needed 3 weeks off work as I had no ability to concentrate. I have been left with headaches, minor scarring around my eye and I am still waiting for an ENT referral for intrusive tinnitus.

I know this accident could have been prevented and it was pure luck that no one died: 10 minutes after the accident, a classroom of children were filing out from where I had just been injured. We can’t wait until the inevitable happens before meaningful action is taken. Steps need to be taken now to ensure the safety of all children, teachers and staff.”

Clearly my constituent has had to go through a lot, and it should shame us all. It is horrifying that we have got to this point. Our children’s school buildings are literally falling apart and, as Carla said, it is surely only a matter of time before something even worse happens.

Carla is also right that this could have been prevented. Thirteen years of reckless Conservative cuts have left us with capital spending on schools cut by 50% in real terms between 2010 and 2022. Despite promises to end austerity in our schools, new capital spending pledges are a drop in the ocean. In my city, 153 of 163 schools face cuts in 2023-24 and are set collectively to lose about £7.7 million. What is worse is that Ministers are keeping parents in the dark about how bad the situation is.

This is not about sowing fear; it is about sowing facts and informing people about what is happening in our education system. For more than a year, Ministers have known that school buildings have posed a risk to life, yet still the Government refuse to tell parents or the public where these dangerous school buildings are. How can Members hold the Government to account on the money they are giving to schools, where that is being directed, and whether those are the correct places? How can we have confidence in the surveys that we have?

Parents have a right to know whether the school they send their children to is safe, and teachers have a right to know whether their workplace is at serious risk of collapse. I hope that the Minister will outline what immediate steps are being taken to ensure that the whole school estate is safe, commit to publishing that condition survey of schools and pledge finally to end austerity in our schools so that students in all our constituencies can receive the good-quality education they deserve in—importantly—a safe and supportive environment. Anything less is a complete dereliction of duty. What happened to Carla is yet another warning sign. I really hope that that warning and her message are not ignored.