Safety of School Buildings

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

Like my hon. Friend, I saw the difference that a Labour Government made in transforming life chances through the fabric of our buildings with the transformation of the schools estate across our country, but not just that: lifting children out of poverty; more teachers in our classrooms; children better supported; and Sure Start programmes. That is the difference that the Labour Government made, and it is the difference that we will make once again.

It was in late October 2021 when the now Prime Minister announced as part of his spending review no fresh money for school maintenance and rebuilding, reaffirming 13 long years of continued underfunding of school capital costs. A decision not to fund is a decision to bear the risk. Although Ministers make the decisions, they do not bear the risks—it is not Conservative MPs or any of us in this Chamber. It is the children, their parents and school staff.

When things are not mended, they break; when buildings break, they cause damage. Of course, they do not need to collapse to cause damage. By the Department’s 2019 estimate, over 80% of England’s schools contain at least some asbestos. More than one in six schools complies with the law on asbestos, but not with the Department’s guidance. Almost 700 schools were reported by the Department to the Health and Safety Executive. These are Government estimates and Government decisions. The trade union Unison estimates that at current funding rates, it will take hundreds of years to fully remove dangerous asbestos from the schools estate. How on earth is that good enough?

It is not just asbestos. It is becoming clearer and clearer that there is a problem right across the schools estate, just as there is across the NHS estate, with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, which the Government describes as a “crumbly type of concrete” that is “liable to collapse”. In 2018, we saw exactly that, when the roof of Singlewell Primary School in Kent collapsed without notice, fortunately at the weekend. In the intervening five years, have we seen decisive action from the Government? Have they got a grip of the scale of the problem? Have they set out a timetable by which they will deal with these challenges, to protect children, parents and school staff? Of course they have not. They have circulated a survey, and that is it.

The Government could be matching the ambition of the last Labour Government by rebuilding schools the length and breadth of the country; modernising school buildings, so that they are fit for children to learn in and for staff to work in; raising aspirations and standards for every child, in every community; and giving children the first-class facilities and education that they deserve. Instead, the now Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), cancelled Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme, a botched decision about which even he now admits that mistakes were made. Since then, the revolving door of Education Secretaries have failed to get a grip on the condition of our schools estate, allowing too many buildings and schools to fall into the state of disrepair we see today.

Our motion today is simple, but it is extraordinary that we have to bring it to the House in this form. In May 2021, the key findings of the Government’s condition survey revealed the alarming state of school buildings. In May 2022, an internal Government document was leaked to The Observer newspaper. It revealed that many school buildings in England were already in such disrepair that they were a “risk to life”.

In July 2022, over a year after the summary report, the Minister said in answer to a parliamentary question that the Department was still not committing to a date for publishing the underlying buildings condition survey data. Later in 2022, Ministers had changed their minds. They said it would be published “later this year”. In December 2022, the Minister for Schools said it would be published “by the end” of the year.

Buried in the Department for Education’s annual report, published in December, we read that a revision of the departmental risk register has moved the risk level of school building collapses to “critical: very likely”, after an increase in serious structural issues being reported. The information was not published by the end of 2022, nor was it published in January 2023. February 2023 came and went: nothing. March 2023 came, and again Ministers were not coming clean. April 2023: again, nothing. And here we are in May, two years on from the summary data being published, and there is nothing at once public and specific about the risks and needs of individual schools. What is there to hide? Why will they not come clean with parents and the public?

Concern about the state of school buildings is not limited to Opposition Members but shared across the House. Conservative Members have pressed their concerns, not merely privately but in the Chamber, directly with Ministers, about schools in Norfolk, Dorset, Lancashire, Stoke-on-Trent and Essex. Across our country, schools are crumbling. Some of them are dilapidated, some are rat-infested, and the Government will not tell parents where they are, how bad they are or how bad the issue has become.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a waste of school resources to have to keep bidding for funds for important things such as central heating? The Joseph Leckie Academy in my constituency was allocated funds under Building Schools for the Future but it has to keep rebidding for them.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Gibb]

Yes, again, the hon. Lady is pleased to see those schools on the list. With approximately 22,000 schools and sixth-form colleges and 64,000 blocks, our school estate is huge, and it is inevitable that some of it is ageing, with more buildings reaching the end of their life. That is why we have a 10-year rebuilding programme, and why we allocate capital funding every year. It is true that we have raised our assessment of the level of risk in the estate and the Department is helping the sector to manage that risk. The risk rating, which the shadow Secretary of State referred to in her opening speech, reflects the overall age of buildings in the estate and that we have worked with schools to resolve more issues with their buildings.

Although we cannot turn back the clock on age—as we all know—or on design, we can improve the effective life expectancy of individual buildings through regular inspections, maintenance and upgrades over time. I can assure the House that, once the Department is made aware of a building that poses risks, immediate action is taken, including closing buildings where necessary.

The shadow Secretary of State raised the important issue of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in some schools. The Department is urgently working to identify which schools have RAAC and to provide them with support. In March 2022 we sent a questionnaire to all bodies responsible for school buildings, asking them to provide information on whether RAAC is present in any of their schools. Last October, my noble Friend the Minister for the School System wrote to responsible bodies that were yet to respond, as well as to council leaders, highlighting the importance the Department placed on identifying RAAC in schools.

We follow up individually every school that reports it might have RAAC, sending a technical adviser to confirm its presence and assess its condition. If RAAC is confirmed, we then ensure that appropriate and rapid action is taken to address any immediate risk, based on professional advice. We also provide additional support as and when it is needed. In that way, we try to ensure that closures are only ever a last resort and any disruption is kept to a minimum.

Funding should not be a barrier to safety, and any academy trust, local authority or voluntary aided school body that has identified a serious issue with its buildings that it cannot manage should contact the Department for advice. Where RAAC is confirmed, we will support schools and colleges in England and fund capital measures, such as temporary buildings, that are required to ensure that it does not pose any immediate risk. We will support affected schools and colleges through that process.

I mentioned data earlier; let me now expand on that. We have significantly improved our understanding of the condition of the school estate through our condition data collection programmes, which provide us with robust evidence for distributing capital funding fairly to where it is most needed.

The first comprehensive review of the condition of the school estate was the property data survey, carried out from 2012 to 2014. It was followed by the CDC programme from 2017 to 2019, which was one of the largest data collections of its kind and covered the condition of almost all 22,000 schools and 260 further education colleges in England. It was carried out by qualified building surveyors and mechanical engineers to provide a picture of the condition of our school and college buildings on a consistent basis.

Its successor programme, condition data collection 2, is now underway and will be completed by 2026. It will update the CDC1 assessments of all Government-funded schools and further education colleges in England. Individual CDC reports were shared with every school, academy trust, local authority and voluntary aided body responsible for those schools immediately after its survey was completed, to help inform its investment plans alongside its own more detailed condition surveys and safety checks.

We are also committed to publishing more detailed data as soon as possible. It is an extremely large dataset, with 1.2 billion data points, and it is taking some time to prepare it for publication in a useful format, but we are none the less preparing it, and I can give a commitment that we will publish as soon as possible, and certainly before the summer recess.

The condition data collection has given us a vital snapshot of the overall condition of the school estate. Positive early indications from our CDC2 data collection and feedback from responsible bodies show that in almost every case where a D grade was identified in the CDC1 report, it has since been addressed.

The CDC is a visual survey, primarily used to help us ensure that funds go where they are most needed. It provides a condition grade from A, meaning good, to D, for life expired, for all school building elements. Where there are different grades of condition apparent across a building component, a percentage grade is applied. A condition grade, for example, can be 95% A and 5% D for a building component. That is not a substitute for more detailed specialist reports or checks that might be commissioned by academy trusts or local authorities, or for ongoing monitoring of buildings by those who use or work in them.

[Valerie Vaz]

The Minister has been very kind in meeting with me and heads of schools in my constituency. I know he takes this seriously, but how confident is he that all these assessments are correct? David Smith, who is the head of Blue Coat Church of England Academy in my constituency, has said that there are material errors in some of the assessments that have been made, and that is why the school has been turned down.

[Nick Gibb]

As I said, this is a visual survey of the condition of schools. I am always happy to meet not only hon. Members but headteachers, and we can have officials who specialise in this area present to explain why a particular school did not meet the conditions in a bid.

There are many aspects of estate management that need the input of qualified professionals, including when specific issues arise. Those might include fire safety, asbestos or structural surveys, for example, as well as regular gas, electrical and water safety checks. We are clear that those risks need to be assessed and managed at a local level, taking into account how buildings are used and underpinned by professional advice. The most effective way of doing that is for those with day-to-day control of sites to manage their buildings well. Only they have direct knowledge of the buildings, changes in their condition and how they are used.

I can assure the House that the safety of everyone in our schools, whether they are studying, supporting or teaching, is paramount. We are investing billions of pounds in renewing buildings and providing academy trusts, local authorities and schools with the right support and guidance they need to manage the school and college estate effectively. We are committed to publishing data we have collected through the condition data collection programme and to supporting schools across the country, and for that reason, I urge all colleagues to vote against the motion this evening.