Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress her Department has made on removing reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete from the school estate.

Our priority will always be to ensure the safety of pupils and staff, which is why we have taken a precautionary approach and asked schools to vacate spaces known to contain RAAC until mitigations are put in place.

To give a sense of the scale, there are around 22,000 schools and colleges in England, of which around 15,000 have at least one block constructed during the period in which RAAC may have been used. Due to the action we have taken to issue questionnaires, we now have responses from all schools and colleges with buildings from the era when RAAC was commonly used. All schools and colleges that advised us they suspected they may have RAAC have had a first survey to confirm if it is present.

The vast majority of schools and colleges surveyed to date have been found to have no RAAC. Where it is present, it may be limited to a single classroom. So far, these surveys have confirmed a very small proportion of schools and colleges – 231, or around 1% – have RAAC present.

In December 2023, we published an updated list of affected schools and colleges. Thanks to the hard work of school and college leaders the vast majority – 228, or 99% - were delivering full time face-to-face education for all pupils. At the time of publication, 3 schools had hybrid arrangements in place, all 3 are now in full-time face-to-face education for all pupils.

Each school and college has a dedicated caseworker to help implement individual mitigation plans and we have dedicated contracts to enable delivery of alternative accommodation including temporary classrooms, and structural supports where appropriate.

We will spend what it takes to resolve this problem as quickly as possible. All reasonable requests for additional help with revenue costs are being approved and we are funding further longer-term refurbishment or rebuilding projects to address the presence of RAAC in schools. Schools and colleagues will either be offered capital grants, or rebuilding projects where these are needed, including through School Rebuilding Programme.