Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government what financial support they are
providing to schools whose catering facilities have been affected
by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Education () (Con)
My Lords, every school or college with confirmed RAAC will be
assigned dedicated support from a caseworker, who will work with
them to assess what support is needed and implement mitigation
plans that are bespoke for their circumstances. The Government
are funding emergency mitigations and reasonable revenue costs
for these settings. This could include establishing a temporary
kitchen, help to access catering facilities on another site or
supporting deliveries of food prepared elsewhere.
(Lab)
My Lords, the Minister for Schools in another place reiterated
that the Government’s commitment is absolute to tackling health
inequalities in education settings, including reference to free
school meals. Does the Minister agree that, as providing free
school meals is vital to many families and a decent meal at
lunchtime is necessary for all, extra funds need to be found to
restore catering facilities where they have been lost to RAAC? I
declare an interest because my granddaughter, while still
enjoying face-to-face education, is in a school that has lost its
kitchen, dining hall, gym, science labs and assembly hall thanks
to the scrapping of Building Schools for the Future.
(Con)
I am sorry that the noble Baroness’s granddaughter is having that
disruption to her education. I would, however, stress that a
number of schools with RAAC were part of Building Schools for the
Future, so I do not think that that is necessarily the main or
only reason for what is happening. To be absolutely clear, we are
supporting schools in revenue terms if they need to bring in
extra staff. For example, some schools have had to bring in extra
catering staff and we are funding that. We are of course making
sure that they can access all the facilities, including kitchens,
which the noble Baroness referred to.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, while I welcome the commitment to free school meals
made by the DfE in its guidance, I note that 214 schools are now
known to be impacted by RAAC. How many of these 214 schools are
now unable to provide catering facilities, and what action is
being taken to ensure their continued provision of hot food?
(Con)
Of the 214 schools the noble Earl referred to, 202 are providing
full-time face-to-face education and 12 are in hybrid
arrangements. In all cases, we work with the school to make sure
it can offer pupils, particularly those eligible for free school
meals, a meal. Not all of them will be having a hot meal—in some
cases, they are having packed lunches as a temporary measure—but
the critical thing is that children are back in face-to-face
education.
(Con)
My noble friend referred to the additional funding the Government
were providing. Could she give the House an indication of the
extent of that and whether further increases are
contemplated?
(Con)
I cannot give the House an exact figure today because we are
working through every school’s exact needs with them, but I would
obviously be delighted to report back to the House when we have
greater clarity on that. All I can say is that, whether it is
revenue funding—which might be for staff, IT equipment or renting
local facilities—or capital funding, the Government will pay for
it.
(Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister kindly give us an idea of the timing
for all facilities to be clear of RAAC? I am particularly
thinking of catering, bearing in mind the Minister’s comments
about making sure that staff and students remain safe from such
problems.
(Con)
I cannot give the noble Lord an exact timeline because, as the
House will have seen from the data we published on 19 October, we
are identifying a number of additional schools with RAAC.
Obviously, the clock starts for each one to address all its
problems. But despite the increase in the number of schools
identified as having RAAC, we have gone from about 14% of
children receiving hybrid education—and a further 16% having to
learn remotely or experiencing a delay to the start of term—to
now only 6%. It is not a question of “only” for those
children—for them, it is a huge deal—but no children are in
remote education at the moment.
(LD)
My Lords, things such as good catering and sports facilities are
reckoned to help academic attainment, so will the fact that those
facilities in these schools have been badly damaged be reflected
in their status in league tables, for example?
(Con)
Schools face different challenges every year, and I am not aware
that there are plans to recalibrate the league tables as a result
of this—I would be very surprised if that happened. But I
reassure the noble Lord that, all around the country, not only
the schools themselves but their neighbouring schools are doing
everything to offer to share their facilities, and we are
enormously grateful for that.
(Lab)
I appreciate that the Minister may need to give a written
response to this, but how many children are currently being
schooled online in temporary or non-classroom settings because of
RAAC? Notwithstanding the Minister’s earlier response, how long
do the Government estimate it will take to completely investigate
all schools?
(Con)
It is not so much that I cannot give an answer now or in writing,
but rather that the arrangements schools have put in place change
frequently, as the noble Baroness will recognise. For example, a
school might be delivering classes in a leisure centre this week
but will be back in its buildings next week. Our overarching
efforts are to get children back to normal education as quickly
as possible.
(Lab)
On league tables, will the department at least conduct some
research on the impact of this issue on the children and their
long-term future? Just as we have seen the devastating impact on
children of Covid and being shut out of schools, surely it would
be worth the Minister’s department focusing on and tracking
through the young people affected.
(Con)
We have data that tracks young people, through the LEO survey,
and I can check whether we can do that for schools. While this is
not in the spirit of the noble Lord’s question, which I
completely recognise and agree with—that we want to make sure
that these children are given every support to succeed—what I
would say is that genuinely, every single case is different.
There will be one school that can use two out of their five
science labs and another that cannot use any of them, while a
third has a neighbour that lends them all theirs, so each one
will be different.
(CB)
My Lords, one does not have to go very far in this city to see
extensive public infrastructure works which, while no doubt
useful, scarcely seem to be essential. What analysis is being
made of infrastructure investment at national and local levels to
ensure that funding is addressed in areas that are most in need,
rather than those that are most useful?
(Con)
Obviously, each department will look at the priorities for its
own policy areas, and in my department’s case a big priority
relates to replacing RAAC in schools that include it and making
sure that our overall school infrastructure is resilient and safe
for children. Clearly, the Treasury, among others, has a critical
role in comparing proposals from different departments and making
those long-term strategic plans.
(Con)
My Lords, at times like this it is obviously natural for many
people to look to government for a solution, but I wonder what
conversations my noble friend’s department has had with private
companies, local charities and civil society organisations, as
well as, dare I say it, faith groups, which may be able to help
at times like this.
(Con)
I am aware that in individual areas, a lot of those conversations
have been going on. We have certainly received a lot of
correspondence in the department with offers of help, but I can
think of both faith and non-faith trusts that have been using
facilities offered by local community organisations.
