Education ‘in complete chaos’ as parliament returns amid school concrete crisis- live

Ministers are under pressure to spell out their plans to make schools safe from aerated concrete as pupils start the new term.

Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said it is a “scandal that as children are just returning to school ministers are still not being upfront about the scale of what we are facing”.

“It’s vital that they publish the list of all the schools as soon as possible,” she said.

“If they don’t do that, we’ll force a vote in the House of Commons to make sure that parents can know exactly what’s going on.

“This is completely unacceptable, children have seen so much disruption to their education and ministers need to get a grip on this because this is a department that is in complete chaos.”

A national “propping” company is being sent to schools affected by crumbling concrete to help support structures in buildings at risk, the education secretary has said.

Gillian Keegan also told BBC Breakfast that eight surveying companies are now examining schools across the country potentially affected by dangerous reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC).

Three temporary accommodation companies are also working with the government and schools affected, she added.

“Normally we wouldn’t do this – the responsible bodies would do it – but to make it much more efficient, we’ve centrally taken that on board,” she told the programme.

Public buildings in Scotland containing reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) pose an “immediate risk to safety” to school pupils and hospital patients, a Scottish government minister has said.

Wellbeing economy secretary Neil Gray said investigations are underway to assess the scale of buildings in Scotland containing the collapse-risk concrete.

The Scottish government has said the lightweight concrete is present in 35 schools in Scotland, with local authorities checking which other buildings it was used on, including hospitals and social housing.

Speaking on BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show programme, Mr Gray said: “At the moment, there is no immediate risk to people using these buildings and that is why we continue to support our local authority partners, NHS boards and others, that have Raac in their buildings to ensure that remains the case, and if there are issues to be resolved, that mitigations are taken to ensure people’s safety.”

It comes as over 100 schools were told to partially or fully shut buildings over fears that dangerous concrete could collapse, plunging the start of the new academic year into chaos.

The attack advert, posted on social media yesterday, is a re-working of a controversial graphic pushed out to voters by the party from earlier in the year.

Parents are still in the dark as millions of pupils return to school this week despite fears that “thousands” more buildings are at risk of collapse from crumbling concrete.

Asked about an estimate that as many as 7,000 schools could be affected, Mr Hunt told the BBC he did not want to “speculate on these numbers” so as to avoid comments that “might scare people unnecessarily”.

As the Commons returns from its six-week summer break today, Rishi Sunak’s much-trailed “reset” has got off to an inauspicious start. Schools in England are also due back but many pupils, parents and teachers faced an anxious wait over the weekend to find out whether their schools will operate normally. It emerged this summer that the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete used in the construction of buildings between the 1950s and 1990s is more dangerous than previously thought.

There is growing evidence that ministers brushed aside warnings about the problem following the partial collapse of a secondary school roof in Kent in 2018, which thankfully happened over a weekend.

The temptation to kick the can down the road was too great – an example of the costly short-termism that afflicts our politicians.

Read The Independent’s editorial.

In total, the government said 156 schools were found to contain RAAC, of which 104 require urgent action while 52 have already received repair works. Some 35 schools have been impacted in Scotland, though Scottish first minister Humza Yousaf said on Saturday there were no plans to close schools there “at this stage”.

Uncertainties and questions mounting over plans to make schools safe from aerated concrete as pupils start the new term as the government is yet to reveal the full scale of the crisis.

A construction expert has said the closure will depend on case-by-case basis.

“The impact of RAAC will vary case-by-case. Not all schools with RAAC need to close: the disruption experienced will depend on a case-by-case basis including what mitigations a school can put in place – and how quickly it can do so,” Tim Seal, Head of Construction at law firm Ridgemont, says. He said the government has been managing the risks associated with RAAC since around 2018 by providing guidance for owners and managers. However, some recent cases – including sudden roof failures – have caused it to decide that buildings containing RAAC should not stay open without extra safety measures being put in place.

“This can be considered as part of government’s policy emphasis over the last few years on the safety of buildings, especially those occupied by more vulnerable parts of society,” he adds. “RAAC was used from the 1960s to the 1990s in various types of public buildings – not just in schools, in hospitals for example. Not all remain in the public sector today. It would be sensible for building owners and managers at risk of having RAAC in their buildings to contact a qualified structural engineer or building surveyor for advice.”

Education secretary Gillian Keegan will face the morning broadcast round this morning for the first time since a crumbling concrete crisis.

She will also address the parliament this week about the government’s plans to address the issue of school closures.

DfE said she will inform the parliament “of the plan to keep parents and the public updated on the issue”.

Ms Keegan said disruption caused by the crisis should last “days, not weeks” even in cases where pandemic-style remote learning was made necessary due to building closures.

Obese patients are being treated on the ground floor of a hospital because of fears that floors above them made of crumbling concrete could collapse.

The shocking disclosure has been made after a group of MPs visited the hospital, built with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC).

Labour MP Meg Hillier, chair of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, described what the MPs discovered as “jaw-dropping”.