Labour plans to force a vote tomorrow to find out what the prime minister knew about the risks of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) when he made spending decisions about school rebuilding.
The party will demand that evidence submitted by the Department for Education (DfE) to the Treasury and Number 10, and correspondence ahead of the Spending Reviews in 2020 and 2021 and the 2022 Spring and Autumn Statements, is published to reveal what advice Mr Sunak, then chancellor, was given about RAAC.
The former DfE permanent secretary Jonathan Slater claimed yesterday that Mr Sunak, in his Spending Review of 2021, had halved the number of schools to be rebuilt in the Schools Rebuilding Programme.
Labour has also said its own analysis shows school rebuilding spending fell while Mr Sunak was chancellor.
The party’s analysis of figures from the National Audit Office found the School Rebuilding Programme dropped from £765 million in 2019-20, to £560 million in 2020-21, and then £416 million in 2021-22, and increasing to £450 million in 2022-23, Labour said yesterday.
Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “It’s scandalous that parents are still in the dark about the dangers posed to their children at school because of Rishi Sunak’s reckless decision to slash budgets for school rebuilding, reportedly against the advice of officials.
“The prime minister is directly responsible for the crisis that has struck schools this week, the chaos that families have faced at the start of term and the disruption to children’s learning.
“Today, we are giving Conservative MPs a choice: to vote with Labour and give parents the right to know about who is responsible for this mess or to vote to conceal the true scale of this crisis and the prime minister’s failure to keep our children safe.”
Mr Sunak defended himself, saying that Mr Slater’s claims were “completely and utterly wrong”.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said on Monday: “One of the first things he did when he became chancellor was announced the new school rebuilding programme, which committed to 500 school projects over 10 years - that’s 50 schools a year - that was delivered in 2020.
“That was reaffirmed in 2021. That was not reduced in that sense.
“In total, the government has allocated over £15 billion since 2015 to keep schools safe and operational - that’s an additional £1.8 billion since the prime minister came into office as well.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “We have been clear since Thursday about the number of schools immediately impacted by RAAC. It is vital that schools are given time to inform parents and consider their next steps, with extensive support from our caseworkers before the list of affected schools is published.
“52 of the 156 RAAC cases identified already have mitigations in place, and while some of the remaining projects will be more complex, many will range from just a single building on a wider estate down to a single classroom.
“We are incredibly grateful to school and college leaders for their work with us at pace to make sure that, where children are affected, disruption is kept to a minimum, and in the even rarer cases where remote learning is required, it is for a matter of days not weeks.”
