Safety of School Buildings

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

While it is welcome that it has been reported today that RAAC has not been found in any of our schools in Salford, I must stress that the fact that the Government were unable to produce that information until today, having known about the risk since at least 2018, when a school roof in Kent collapsed, is completely unacceptable.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I am glad that Salford has no schools with RAAC problems, but in Bolton we found out on Friday that St William of York, St Andrew’s Church of England and St Bernard’s were affected. St Bernard’s was not even on any list, and St Gregory’s is still awaiting the result. Do you agree that the Government should publish the full list, not the half-baked one that they published this afternoon?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The hon. Lady knows that she must not address her hon. Friend as “you”; otherwise, she is addressing me.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I apologise.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I completely agree with my constituency neighbour. I stress that not just schools are affected by this crisis; it extends to public buildings, and concerns have been raised in recent days by the building industry that certain residential properties, particularly social housing, could also be affected. On hospitals alone, a report by the National Audit Office in July this year said that structurally unsound RAAC was present in at least 41 hospitals. The Turnberg building at Salford Royal Hospital is reported to be one of them.

Despite this clear national building safety crisis, there is no detail from Government on what action will or will not be taken, no detail on the urgent funding and support that will be provided to remediate and no assurances so far that the costs will not come out of existing school, NHS and local authority budgets. Worse still, there appears to be an emerging message today from Government that this crisis is stand-alone—that it is simply a sad indictment of less-regulated old building practices that are now outdated.

That is not the true story. The real culprit here is the unashamed pursuit of austerity by this Government and the coalition before them. Let us not forget that, to start with, the coalition ripped up Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme in 2010 and never adequately replaced it. Worse still, between 2009 and 2022 the Department for Education’s capital spending declined by 37% in cash terms and 50% in real terms. That is in addition to NHS and local authority budgets being slashed on a similar basis, with the effect that most ongoing public sector estate upgrade programmes were torn to shreds.

Sadly, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies states:

“The current crisis illustrates just how costly failing to keep on top of necessary investment in buildings and infrastructure can be.”

How much money was actually required, had the Government taken action on schools when it should have? The National Audit Office in 2017 published a report on capital spending that stated that it would cost £6.7 billion to return all schools to a satisfactory or better condition. That report was also clear that there is a significant risk of major costs arising from deterioration of the estate.

Action was needed in 2017, but in November 2020, in the Government spending review, they allocated only £3.1 billion—less than half the amount of investment required just to keep buildings ticking over safely. Then the story becomes even more absurd: in March 2022, realising that there was a problem, the Department for Education sent a questionnaire to all schools asking if they had RAAC on their estate, but later told schools not to spend any money on surveys to find out.

Even after that, in May 2022, when Government documents were leaked to The Observer showing that school buildings could be a risk to life—causing great alarm in schools up and down the country—half the schools then applied for funding to remediate and did not get a penny from Government. In June 2023, the National Audit Office said the condition of school buildings was “declining” and warned that 700,000 pupils were learning in buildings that it described as unsafe or ageing. It stated clearly that the DfE had received significantly less funding for school buildings than it estimated it needed between 2016 and 2023.

The Government knew that this crisis was coming, and the causes of this crisis were very deliberate. Austerity is, was and always will be a political choice, but it is both immoral and economically illiterate. The only political choice the Government should have made was to ensure the safety of their people. Sadly, if they had made that choice, the cost borne then would be a mere shadow of the cost required today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

It is a privilege to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate, but I must say that I am particularly disappointed by the tone with which it has started. This is a very serious issue: there are a high number of concerned parents and teachers and headteachers who work in those buildings, and obviously, their primary concern is the children.

I would specifically point out the selective interpretation and opportunism shown by Labour Members, because they only have to look the other side of Offa’s Dyke or the Prince of Wales Bridge to see what is happening in Wales. They forget that Labour has been in power in Wales for 26 years—if that has not been sufficient time to reform education and rebuild these buildings, I do not know how long they will need. Let us remember that education in Wales is entirely devolved. That gives the Administration the freedom to survey, assess and repair buildings, and rebuild them where necessary. Labour has been in power for 26 years, but the reality is that we still do not know the state of the buildings in Wales. That is the truth of the Labour Administration.

The synthetic anger we have heard from the Labour Benches has created an awful lot of hot air, but I can direct exactly the same questions and accusations at the Administration in Wales. They have been there for 26 years, but we still do not know. Can we imagine the synthetic anger that we would hear from Labour Front Benchers, and Back Benchers, if the Secretary of State or the Minister said today, “I am sorry, but we still do not know; it is going to take another couple of weeks”? There would be understandable outrage, but Labour Members are completely ignoring the situation and the state of the education service in Wales.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The right hon. Gentleman is talking about Wales. Speaking as an English MP, the BBC is reporting that at least 13 schools with RAAC were set to be rebuilt under a Labour plan, but those building projects were scrapped by the Conservative-led Government in 2010. The former Secretary of State for Education, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), said that he scrapped that scheme because he did not want to “waste any more money”, and work on 700 schools was halted. Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that that was an appalling thing for him to do?

[Alun Cairns]

With the greatest respect to the hon. Lady, I am not sure whether she is referring to Wales or to England. The point I am making is that Labour has been in power in Wales for 26 years. Two schools have been identified as having RAAC issues, but we simply do not know about the rest. There would be understandable anger and frustration if the Secretary of State or the Minister dared to come out with that response.

No Welsh Labour MP has participated in this debate, and up until now, none has even been present in the Chamber. Let us remember that the former First Minister in Wales said in relation to education that the Welsh Administration had taken their “eye off the ball”. I do not think their eye has ever been replaced on the ball, bearing in mind the standards in Wales.

Many colleagues on the Conservative Benches have listed a whole host of education outcomes and uplifts—my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) just went through a whole host of successes, and other colleagues have mentioned the number of good, excellent and outstanding schools here in England—but sadly, my constituents do not get the same benefits. Any international comparison, be it the programme for international student assessment or any other, shows that Wales has fallen back in comparison with England.

The Opposition day motion is opportunistic, as we have already highlighted, but let us at least humour it for a moment. When the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) responds for Labour, will she assure me that if my colleagues in the Welsh Senedd table this motion, Labour Members will support it? Exactly the same questions apply in Wales as in England, so I ask her to respond specifically to that question. I will happily give way if any Labour Front Benchers want to intervene now, but I notice that they are all keeping their heads down. They are frightened; I suggest that they are embarrassed to look at me, and to respond to the questions that we are raising.

The investigation started in England 18 months ago, and it started at a much later point in Wales. The reality is that we still do not know the outcome, and we have two weeks left to wait. I can imagine the anger that would be felt by Labour Members if that position was shared by my right hon. Friend the Minister. However, let us be realistic about this: new evidence comes to light and therefore new decisions need to be taken, and that is exactly what has happened in this situation. There is a whole host of Ministers, officials, teachers and parents co-ordinating efforts to make a real difference and get through this immediate challenge, much of which will be very short-term. This has been a long-standing problem, and there is a need for a whole host of quick decisions to be taken, as well as for transparency and for clarity.

Let me close my contribution with the comments of the Children’s Commissioner for Wales. This is not from any party political person, but from an independent individual appointed by the Welsh Government. She has said that the statements issued by the Welsh Government Minister so far

“don’t give families the clarity they need on what this means for them or the next steps for their school”,

and on

“what exactly will happen over the next few weeks and reassurance that schools are safe.”

That is from the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, appointed with statutory responsibility to protect the interests of children, and even she has lost faith in the decision making, transparency and clarity of the Welsh Government.

Finally, will the shadow Minister reassure me that, if my friends or colleagues in the Senedd table this motion, Labour Members will support it?