Labour reveals how Rishi Sunak personally cut school building budgets and put children’s lives at risk
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Labour accused the Prime Minister of “putting children’s lives at
risk” after a former Permanent Secretary at the Department for
Education placed responsibility for drastic cuts to the school
rebuilding programme on the Prime Minister. Commenting on the
Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete crisis engulfing schools,
Jonathan Slater, told the Today programme that during the 2021
Spending Review, the then Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, halved the
number of schools that could be...Request free trial
Labour accused the Prime Minister of “putting children’s lives at risk” after a former Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education placed responsibility for drastic cuts to the school rebuilding programme on the Prime Minister. Commenting on the Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete crisis engulfing schools, Jonathan Slater, told the Today programme that during the 2021 Spending Review, the then Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, halved the number of schools that could be rebuilt, despite a recommendation from the Department for Education to double the number from 100 to 200. Analysis from the Labour party has now revealed the full extent of school building cuts made by Rishi Sunak as Chancellor of the Exchequer, with government spending on its flagship schools rebuilding programmes has seen a cumulative cut of £869 million. Labour’s analysis revealed that spending on school rebuilding in 2019-20 was £765 million, but after Sunak became Chancellor this dropped to £560 million in 2020-21 and as little as £416 million in 2021-22, a fall of 41% overall. The cuts came despite warnings from the Department for Education that the cost of returning schools to satisfactory conditions would double between 2015-16 and 2020-21. Labour’s analysis comes as the number of schools likely to have to close because of dangerous RAAC is set to grow, with over 150 affected so far.
Bridget Phillipson MP, Labour’s Shadow
Education Secretary, said: “Rishi Sunak bears huge culpability for his role in this debacle: he doubled down on Michael Gove’s decision to axe Labour’s schools rebuilding programme and now the chickens have come home to roost – with yet more disruption to children’s education. “Labour warned time and again about the risks posed by the crumbling schools estate under the Conservatives but were met with complacency, obstinacy and inaction. “Ministers need to come clean about the number of schools affected, what they knew, and when they knew, about the risks posed by RAAC so that parents can be reassured their children are safe at school.” Ends Notes
pp.30, Condition of school buildings, National Audit Office, 28 June 2023, https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/condition-of-school-buildings.pdf
Source: pp.30, Condition of school buildings, National Audit Office, 28 June 2023, https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/condition-of-school-buildings.pdf
JS: The top political priority in respect to school building when I was the Permanent Secretary was in opening new free schools. That's what the Conservative Party put at the heart of their 2015 manifesto. For me as an official that seemed that it should have been second to safety. Politics is about choices and that was a choice they made. NR: And there were further choices made after you left the department in 2020. Over the budget, what did you see happening? JS: Well, I told you that I was optimistic that with the quality of the analysis, we had some really good people detailed studies that had never be done anywhere before - I thought we'd get it over the line. The spending review was completed a year after I left the department. And I was absolutely amazed to see that the decision made by the government was to halve the school rebuilding programme, down from 100 year to 50 a year. NR: To be clear that in the department, you were saying we need to rebuild three to 400. It became 100 here, and after you left the department it went down to 50. JS: Yes, to be clear. We know what's needed was 3 - 400. There's only so much capacity in the construction industry. There's disruption if you close schools and rebuild them. So the actual ask in the spending review in 2021 was to double the 100 to 200. That's what we thought was going to be practical in the first instance, I thought we'd get it. But the actual decision that the chancellor took in 21 was to half the size. NR: The Chancellor of course was at the time, was…? JS: Rishi Sunak NR: Now, what ministers will say is there is new evidence that things that we thought were long term crisis, we've been told differently because the evidence has changed and we're reacting accordingly. JS: So there's no secret about the fact that these concrete system built schools have to design life for 30 to 40 years. You don't know when any individual concrete block is going to crack because it cracks from the inside. But you know, it's going to happen – and it has. Source: Radio 4 - Listen Live - BBC Sounds, 7.15 am |
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