Safety of School Buildings

Priti Patel Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

Unlike some, I welcome the opportunity to follow up Monday’s statement from the Government Front Bench and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to discuss RAAC. More than 50 schools in Essex are affected, and I begin by paying tribute to Essex County Council and its leadership: Councillor Kevin Bentley, Councillor Tony Ball and officers led by Claire Kershaw. They have been robust in their leadership and are doing so much to help parents, teachers and pupils. I should add that our council is working not just with local authority schools, but academy trusts too. They are not saying that it will help one school over another. They are stepping up to deal with the challenge and we are grateful to them.

I commend them for convening Essex MPs. Madam Deputy Speaker, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Dame Eleanor Laing), has also raised concerns on behalf of her schools directly with the county council, as has the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). He has a school that is affected: Sir Frederick Gibberd College. We are working together because we believe in finding solutions. We are not interested in politicking at this time.

I want to thank parents and pupils in Essex for understanding the difficulties we are all facing. They have been inconvenienced by the RAAC issue, but it is important to point out that, certainly in my constituency, community groups and businesses have come forward to help find alternative provision and sites. I thank them too. The focus right now has to be on finding solutions to the immediate challenges we are facing, minimising disruption to learning, and ensuring affected pupils, parents and schools are supported. I do not think they are interested in political point scoring; they want answers and solutions.

I will use my time to put some questions to those on the Government Front Bench, and I know they will come back on them in due course. I welcome from the Minister the details of the steps that have been taken across Government to mobilise the strong operational—that is the whole point—delivery response we want. The Prime Minister gave an assurance earlier that all funding necessary will be provided, including capital and revenue. That is important because our county council is already liaising, co-ordinating and covering costs in the interim. It will be sending in an invoice, and we hope it will come to the Department for Education. The council will, of course, need to know when those costs will be met and who in the Department it will be liaising with, so I would like some assurances on that.

We have concerns about the impact on learning. I have raised—I raised it on Monday in this House—concerns around children with special needs, disabilities and vulnerabilities, and the impact of missed learning on parents, with difficulties around childcare. We are looking at finding practical solutions, so I would welcome any update from the Front Bench on that, too. We will need to think about how the impact, particularly on exams and Ofsted inspections, will be managed. It is inevitable, post pandemic, that we will see more Ofsted inspections locally—I know that from my own schools—but we have key year groups in exam years and we have to support them.

On temporary measures being put in place, all Members will be concerned about the pressures on the market and the demands for portable classrooms and facilities. The Secretary of State and I have already spoken about those demands and the potentially increased costs, so it would be helpful for the Government to give a supply update. Alongside the pressure of supply for temporary classrooms is the impact on the construction sector and extra insurance costs and premiums. Schools and the local authority will be looking at those issues and quality control measures.

This has already been touched on in the debate and over the past few days, but issues other than RAAC are affecting our schools, and I have raised them in the past, such as damp and old buildings that are worn out and need updating and replacing. Perhaps not today—this is an Opposition day debate—but we will need an update on what this all means for us going forward.

Finally, this is a difficult and challenging time for teachers, schools, pupils and parents. On behalf of all of those affected in the Witham constituency, Essex and the whole country, today is a chance for the Government to give an assurance that they will do everything possible to ensure that face-to-face education can come back for affected schools and that we are doing everything we can to support them.