Safety of School Buildings

Sara Britcliffe Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)]

This is a concerning issue, and the amount of politicking and scaremongering of parents, teachers and pupils that the Opposition do on it worries me. Many schools and public buildings built with RAAC are characteristic of the brutalist style of architecture favoured between the ’50s and ’70s. The buildings were cheap and not built to last, and they popped up under various Governments. That shows the seemingly prevailing attitude of short-termism at the time; Governments knew it would be somebody else’s problem in the future, as indeed it is now.

It must have been the same attitude that prevailed in 1997 and 2002, when a Labour Government took no action on RAAC, despite being warned about the dangers by the Building Research Establishment. My right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) stood at the Dispatch Box in the coalition era and criticised Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme for often targeting the wrong schools, and in the light of this week’s evidence, it seems that he has been proven right, so I find the Opposition’s outrage quite performative. The Department for Education, as I understand it, published guidance to schools on the topic in 2018.

I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, but my back has just gone. I have a problem with my back. Carry on.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am sorry to hear that. I will move on to the next speaker, Munira Wilson.