Safety of School Buildings

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State to move the motion.

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[Bridget Phillipson]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point about how we spend public money and how we spend it wisely. Sadly, what we have seen all too often is a sticking plaster approach, as she says, where short-term measures are taken even though in the long run the schools are sometimes beyond repair. Expecting schools to go through this process all the time is not an effective use of public money, but alongside that, we cannot be confident that the money is always spent in the best possible place or where there is the greatest need because Ministers will not tell us where the problems are.

I know that the Minister wants to talk about the schools in which the Government have invested, not those they have not; about the few repairs that they have done, not the many that they have not; and about the announcement that they made yesterday, not the one that we need today. Let me remind Members on both sides of the House of what Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, has said:

“This is money allocated through an annual bidding programme to address significant needs in terms of the condition of school and college buildings and is most certainly not an example of government largesse.”

He went on:

“It is the bare minimum and nowhere near enough to meet the cost of remedial work to repair or replace all defective elements in the school estate in England”.

Rather than telling parents to be grateful, the Minister should come clean about the schools that are not being repaired, the buildings that are failing, the risks to our children, parents and school staff and the delays that they are enduring while the Government drag their feet. So far this year, the Department has published a list of 1,033 successful bids, which is 375 fewer than in 2022-23. I am always glad when a school gets the repairs it needs, but the story is not the schools that have been repaired; it is the ones that have not—or that have, but after goodness knows how long.

The wording of the motion presents Conservative Members with a simple choice: between their constituents and their Government; between openness and secrecy; and above all, between party and country. The choice is simple: a vote, in the public interest, to tell parents, young people and school staff what the Government know about the safety of their schools; or a vote with Ministers to keep that information hidden. I commend the motion to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

As I am sure colleagues can see, this is a well-subscribed debate so I might have to put on a time limit. I would like to advise that it would be worth aiming for a maximum of six minutes to start with. Depending on the opening speech from the Minister, I might have to put an actual time limit on, but my advice at the moment is to start at six minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I have 16 speakers to get in, so while I said that speeches would have to be a maximum of six minutes, it is probably more like five minutes.