Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of
the extent of the problem of reinforced autoclaved aerated
concrete in public buildings other than schools.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville- Rolfe)
(Con)
My Lords, the Government have acted decisively to tackle the
issue, taking a proportionate approach informed by experts. The
Office of Government Property, which is part of the Cabinet
Office, wrote to all government property leaders in 2019 and
again in September 2022, highlighting safety notices on RAAC and
signposting Institution of Structural Engineers guidance on
identification and remediation. It is the responsibility of
individual organisations such as departments, arm’s-length bodies
or wider organisations such as NHS trusts, to manage their own
buildings.
(Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Answer, but there is
something of a metaphor for the Government in this issue of
RAAC—time expired and liable to collapse with little or no
notice. Is the Chancellor going to agree to “spend whatever it
takes” to fix the problems in housing, hospitals and other public
buildings? The Minister just mentioned the Cabinet Office review,
but what about the Ministry of Defence review into its buildings
that I understood had to be completed by July? How many hospitals
are going to be partially closed as a result of work on RAAC and
will the Government list them in the way they have done for
schools? Does the Minister agree with the head of the National
Audit Office that getting value for money depends on doing the
“unflashy but essential” things such as maintenance, in addition
to what you might call a sticking-plaster approach that ends up
costing more money? In short, can the Minister understand why
some people think that this is an autoclaved aerated crumbling
Government in need of replacement?
(Con)
That was a huge array of questions more suitable for debate, but
perhaps I can make clear that the Government have agreed to fund
extensive RAAC mitigation works across the NHS and the education
estate by capital funding allocations. We will consider the
approach to any RAAC funding in other public sector estates on a
case-by-case basis. As regards the MoD, the programme of surveys
is ongoing, given the size of the estate, and I know that my
right honourable friend the new Defence Secretary takes this
matter very seriously.
(LD)
My Lords, the Comptroller and Auditor-General wrote yesterday in
the Times that the problems were caused by “underinvestment” in
the physical estate and
“by the lack of a robust long-term programme of building
maintenance and replacement”,
and suggested that that needs now to be urgently addressed. Can
the Minister assure us that the Government are now willing to
develop such a long-term programme and raise the level of
investment in the public estate, or are they going to give in to
the continuing demands from right-wing newspapers and their own
Back Benches to cut taxes first and not put the money in?
(Con)
The Government are investing and will continue to invest in
public sector buildings. Take education: the Government have
allocated £15 billion since 2015 to keep schools safe and
operational. In this area, professional advice has evolved over
time.
Successive Governments since 1994 have managed the risk of RAAC
and will continue to do so. I have explained the central advice
given to help individual public sector bodies manage their
responsibilities in the way that all building and property owners
need to do.
(CB)
My Lords, it is my understanding that four out of five schools
have asbestos in them, as do many public buildings, including
this one. If the concrete part of a building is now degrading and
exposing the asbestos, at which point its disturbance makes it
extremely dangerous, what are the Government’s plans to budget
and implement a way to deal with the asbestos and the concrete at
the same time?
(Con)
As the noble Lords knows, there is of course a legal framework
for managing asbestos through the Control of Asbestos Regulations
2012 and I refer to the expert advice and involvement of
independent building experts that have played a very important
part in identifying RAAC in places such as hospitals and managing
that in a responsible way.
(Lab)
My Lords, the test of a good Government is not whether a crisis
pops up on their watch that they have to deal with but how
Ministers respond. There are two options—you can roll up your
sleeves and get on with it or you can dither, delay, cut funding
and blame others while expecting to be thanked. As the scale of
the schools problem emerges, and given that the Government cut
Building Schools for the Future funding, the Minister said just
now that the Cabinet Office wrote to all government departments
in 2019. Can she tell the House whether the Government now have a
grasp of the extent of the problem to which courts, hospitals and
other buildings used by the public are affected by this? If they
have, given that the letter went out in 2019, when will that
information be published?
(Con)
Actually, we have rolled up our sleeves in this case, to quote
the noble Baroness. We wrote in 2019, and again in 2022 after
Covid. A great deal of management on a risk-based basis has been
undertaken across the public sector, drawing on professional
expert advice, because it is very important that that is done.
More recently, in June 2023, the Cabinet Office set up an expert
working group under the OGP to look at RAAC. Of course, that has
been meeting very frequently since the information, which has
been the subject of other Question sessions, became available in
schools in August.
(Con)
My Lords, we are learning about a range of RAAC in all building
types across the nation’s estate, from theatres to
hospitals—sometimes in small amounts, sometimes in big amounts—so
it is a complex picture that will need remedying or, crucially,
mitigation. Does my noble friend agree that the approach that
government takes includes advice, as she described briefly, from
technical experts such as the Institution of Structural
Engineers? If so, can she say more?
(Con)
I cannot help but agree with my noble friend: it is absolutely
right to follow expert advice in this sort of case. That is why
the OPA wrote out on a number of occasions, and it is why my
right honourable friend in the other place, the Minister for the
Cabinet Office, had discussions with the Institution of
Structural Engineers only this week. We are pursuing this, but we
are ensuring that those who are responsible are putting in the
effort and making the changes that are necessary—and we are
giving central support, as I explained, in relation to education
and health.
(LD)
My Lords, many universities are likely to suffer from this
problem, and some, of course, also have hospital trusts
associated with them. The noble Baroness said it was up to NHS
trusts and individual institutions to manage their estates, but
she knows that that is not a sustainable position, because this
problem is not evenly spread across the sector and will impact
very heavily on individual organisations. What more will the
Government do and announce in the near future to assist those
affected? I declare an interest as chancellor of Cardiff
University.
(Con)
I am grateful to hear from the noble Baroness about the situation
in the university sector. Of course, they will be taking their
responsibilities seriously. As I know from having been involved
in these sorts of organisations, the governors always spend a lot
of time being concerned about, and taking professional advice on,
the safety and state of buildings. Universities and hospitals,
where RAAC mitigation work has been going on since 2019, are a
bit different from schools, because the estates are usually
concentrated in a smaller number of buildings and there are
usually dedicated teams of trained estate professionals who are
able to monitor and maintain the buildings.
(Lab)
My Lords, when the noble Baroness says that public bodies should
accept their responsibilities, is she not aware—of course she
is—that capital expenditure limits in the public sector are set
by central government? Very often, the specifications for
building materials are specified through government machinery and
advice. After the survey of the NHS in relation to RAAC, why is
the target to get rid of it 2035? Why will it take another 12
years?
(Con)
One of the reasons for that is that some of the hospitals in
which we have identified RAAC need a full replacement. They will
be part of the rebuilt hospitals programme, which is due to
mature by 2030. DHSC has published a media fact sheet on RAAC in
the NHS, which I think the noble Lord might find very helpful in
the health context.
