THE FOLLOWING ARE THE EXCERPTS OF THE PROCEEDING OF THE WEEKLY PRIME MINISTER’S QUESTIONS, INCLUDING THE ONE ON THE STATE OF AFFAIRS OF THE SCHOOLS IN THE COUNTRY
I know how concerned parents, children and teachers are, and I want to start by assuring them that the Government are doing everything that we can to fix this quickly, and minimise the disruption to children’s education.
Mr Speaker
I welcome everybody back to Prime Minister’s questions.
Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)
Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 6 September. (906228)
Rishi Sunak (The Prime Minister)
I would like to start by congratulating Sarina Wiegman and the Lionesses on their fantastic performance at the World cup. We are all incredibly proud of them. I also know that the whole House will join me in sending condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Sergeant Graham Saville. It is testament to his bravery that he died in the line of duty, and a terrible reminder of the work that the police do every day to keep us safe…
Mr Louie French
The Labour party used to claim that it represents working-class people, but Labour’s ultra- low emission zone expansion to Greater London will now hammer millions of working people with bills of £12.50 per day, or £4,500 per year. Does the Prime Minister agree that it is unacceptable that Londoners and those in surrounding counties face this regressive and unacceptable tax, and will he do everything that he can to help working people?
The Prime Minister
I agree with my hon. Friend. It is disappointing that last week the Labour leader allowed the Labour Mayor to introduce ULEZ, charging hard-working people £12.50 every time they start their car, adding to the burden of the cost of living. All I can say is that while we focus on helping hard-working families, all the Labour leader does is punish them.
Mr Speaker
We now come to the Leader of the pposition.
Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
I join the Prime Minister in congratulating the Lionesses, and also in his comments about Sergeant Saville; I think we speak for the whole House when we speak on that subject.
I also extend the warmest welcome to my hon. Friend the new Labour Member for Selby and Ainsty (Keir Mather). He has already made history for the Labour party by overturning the largest Tory majority ever in a by-election. I also welcome the hon. Members for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Steve Tuckwell) and for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke).
The roof of Singlewell Primary School in Gravesend collapsed in May 2018. Thankfully, it happened at the weekend and no children were injured. The concrete ceiling was deemed dangerous and liable to collapse, and everyone knew that the problem existed in other schools, yet the Prime Minister decided to halve the budget for school maintenance just a couple of years later. Does he agree with his Education Secretary that he should be thanked for doing a “good job”?
The Prime Minister
I know how concerned parents, children and teachers are, and I want to start by assuring them that the Government are doing everything that we can to fix this quickly, and minimise the disruption to children’s education. We make no apology for acting decisively in the face of new information.
Let me provide the House with an update on where we are. Of the 22,000 schools in England, the vast majority will not be affected. In fact, in two thirds of inspections of suspected schools, RAAC— reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—is not actually present. To tackle the 1% of schools that have been affected so far, we are assigning each school a dedicated caseworker and providing extra funding to fix the problem…
Keir Starmer
Wood Green Academy in Sandwell was on Labour’s building list in 2010. The Conservatives scrapped it, and now children there are in a crumbling school. The head of the National Audit Office accuses the Prime Minister of taking a “sticking plaster approach”. The NAO report says he cut £869 million. The person who ran the Department for Education says the Prime Minister is personally responsible. On Monday, he leapt to his own defence, saying it is “utterly wrong” to blame him—so why does literally everyone else say it is his fault?
The Prime Minister
The professional advice from the technical experts on RAAC has evolved over time. Indeed, it is something that successive Governments have dealt with, dating back to 1994. As new advice has come forward, the Government have rightly, decisively and swiftly acted in the face of that advice.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman talked about school budgets and what I had done, but let me just walk him through the facts of what that spending review actually did… Funding for school maintenance and rebuilding will average £2.6 billion a year … That spending review maintained the school rebuilding programme, delivering 500 schools over a decade, a pace completely consistent with what had happened previously…
