Bridget Phillipson on comments by the Prime Minister suggesting that more schools could be affected by the Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete crisis
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Bridget Phillipson MP, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary,
responding to comments by the Prime Minister suggesting that more
schools could be affected by the Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated
Concrete crisis, said: "The Prime Minister has now
revealed what many parents feared: this crisis affects many more
schools than they were initially led to believe. "The decisions he
took directly as Chancellor to drastically cut the number of
schools to be...Request free trial
Bridget Phillipson MP, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, responding to comments by the Prime Minister suggesting that more schools could be affected by the Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete crisis, said: "The Prime Minister has now revealed what many parents feared: this crisis affects many more schools than they were initially led to believe. "The decisions he took directly as Chancellor to drastically cut the number of schools to be rebuilt are there in black and white, in a spending review he signed off, and have put children directly at risk from this dangerous form of concrete, which should have been replaced. "It’s time that this Conservative government, including the Prime Minister, came clean about which schools are affected, what they knew about this dangerous concrete, and the decisions they took which have seen more than a hundred close. If they don’t, Labour will force a vote to release the information in the House of Commons.” 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
School buildings and capital funding (England), House of Commons Library, 1 September 2023, https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7375/CBP-7375.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 |
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