Safety of School Buildings

Stephen Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to conclude this important debate in support of the motion in my name and that of the Leader of the Opposition.

Following a decade of neglect by the Conservatives of our country’s school estate, children across England face disruption to learning as well as direct threats to their safety. Yet today, parents are still in the dark about the scale of the problem. Two years ago, the condition of school buildings survey revealed alarming problems within the school estate. Since then, Labour has been calling on the Government to be transparent with parents and to tell them whether their child’s school poses a risk to life; but instead of being transparent, the Government have chosen to continue pulling the wool over parents’ eyes.

That is why Labour is giving Conservative MPs a choice tonight. They can show they are on the side of parents who want answers today, or they can show that they are on the side of the Government, who want to keep parents in the dark. My hon. Friends the Members for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott), for Wakefield (Simon Lightwood), for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin), for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake), for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith), for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins), for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), for Easington (Grahame Morris) and for Blaydon (Liz Twist) have all articulated the importance of this debate for parents in their areas with helpful speeches and interventions, and made a powerful case for schools in their constituencies.

My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State opened the debate by outlining how, in 13 years of Conservative government, not once has capital spending for the Department for Education matched in real terms the level it was at when this Government entered office. However, as she said, the test is not just the money the Government put in, but the state of the buildings in which our children learn, and that tells its own story. As she said:

“When people don’t mend things, they break; when buildings break, they cause damage.”

As I stated, it has been two years since the condition of school buildings survey revealed alarming problems within the school estate. It has been one year since a leaked Government report revealed that school buildings in England are now in such disrepair that they pose a risk to life. It has been six months since the Department for Education raised the risk of school buildings collapsing from “critical” to “critical—very likely” in its annual report.

Yet despite those repeated warnings, there is no urgency from Government to fix the problem or to address the concerns of parents—and not for want of trying by Labour. We have repeatedly asked the Government to identify which buildings are most affected. In December, the Schools Minister said he would publish the data on these dangerous buildings by the end of the year. In January he said the data would be “published shortly”. In February we heard nothing, in March we heard nothing and in April—you may have guessed it, Mr Deputy Speaker—we heard nothing. We are now in May, and parents, staff and pupils still do not know whether their school is “very likely” to collapse.

That begs the question why this Government are so determined to keep parents in the dark on this. The Opposition welcome the Minister’s latest promise to publish the data before the House rises this summer, but we have heard this all before. We heard it last year. We do not want any more broken promises. We will not believe the Government until they publish the data. One thing that is clear is that the Government are not going to disclose that information of their own volition, which is why we have tabled this motion.

Whether on lockdown parties, speeding tickets or school buildings, this is a Government incapable of transparency. That is why we must force them to be transparent and to come clean to parents regarding the condition and location of crumbling school buildings. It is parents, children and school staff whose lives will be at risk—not my words, Mr Deputy Speaker, but the words of senior officials in the Department for Education. Those officials are seriously worried at data showing that one third of school buildings pose a

“serious risk of imminent failure”.

That is more than 7,000 school buildings across England.

Conservative Members may wish to ignore the problem, but they really should not, because those schools include 23 in Chichester, seven in Bognor Regis, seven in Stoke-on-Trent North and 21 in Richmond, Yorkshire. All bar two councils in England have at least four schools requiring urgent work.

It is no wonder that our nation’s school buildings are in their current state. Between 2010 and 2022, overall capital spending on England’s state school estate fell by about 50% in real terms.

The Minister will point to the funding announcement in March, but after a decade of neglect, that will barely scratch the surface of what is needed. The DFE itself has admitted that the true cost of repair will be over 10 times what the Government announced, at £11.4 billion. The Minister will also point to the condition improvement funding announcement yesterday, but as sector experts pointed out, this money is the bare minimum and not close to the amount needed to repair or replace faulty elements in the school estate.

It is becoming clearer by the day that after 13 years of dysfunction, we are now approaching the end of the road for this Tory Government. For our school estate, this has been 13 years of cut-price, sticking plaster solutions and inefficient repairs, when green rebuilds and long-term plans were required. The result of that is evident, and from visiting schools up and down the country, I have seen it all at first hand—ageing buildings, many of which were built decades, if not a century ago, with unmet repairs, cracked walls, asbestos, buckets placed across classrooms catching leaks and crumbling roofs. The Government’s complacency on this is inexcusable, given the scale of the problem.

I have heard from teachers and school leaders of a number of near misses, and too often we have seen stories of injuries to adults caused by faulty school buildings that would have been much more tragic had a child been standing in the same place. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam told the House last month of a parent in her constituency who was injured after a piece of cladding fell on her, and I thank her for telling Carla’s story again today.

A recent freedom of information request from Schools Week found that a teacher was reportedly admitted to hospital after they were hit by a falling ceiling tile at a school in Bradford, forcing temporary closure and repairs. A school in Birmingham also temporarily closed after a concrete ceiling panel fell on a desk during the holidays. I cannot bear to think about what could have happened in those instances had they happened on a different day, week or hour. We must realise that these near misses will not continue forever, and that is why the Government cannot continue to bury their head in the sand.

The last Labour Government transformed our children’s schools and our school estate. Widespread modern rebuilds led to improvements in standards and behaviour and made school a place for children to learn. It only took the current Levelling Up Secretary six years to admit he regretted scrapping the Building Schools for the Future programme, which caused over 700 school building projects to be cancelled, including the secondary school I attended in Portsmouth, which was an old Victorian building then and is still an old Victorian building now. It seems that the lessons learned by the Levelling Up Secretary still have not been passed on to his colleagues.

It will therefore be up to the next Labour Government to make our school estate one to be proud of once again and to make sure that every child in every corner of our country can go to an excellent local school. Until that day, it is all MPs’ duty to ensure that all children go to a school that is safe, that all teachers and all school staff are not at risk when they go to work, and that all parents know the real state of children’s school buildings.

For over a decade, Conservatives neglected that duty, but fortunately today, all Members, including those on the Government Benches, have a choice. They can show that they are on the side of parents by publishing long-overdue data revealing the condition and location of the buildings that the Government have admitted are very likely to collapse. They can shed a light on an issue that the Government are determined to keep hidden in the dark. We can choose to tell parents the truth. Government Members can show that they are willing to put the wellbeing and safety of children above party loyalty. The other choice is to side with the Government, to keep parents in the dark, to keep hoping for near misses and to continue allowing the Government to bury their head in the sand.

I know which side Labour will be on: we will be on the side of teachers and school support staff, on the side of parents and on the side of children. I look forward to seeing which side Government Members choose.