School buildings in England made with certain type of concrete forced to close over safety fears
School buildings in England made with a certain type of concrete that is prone to collapse will be immediately closed over safety fears, the government has announced.
Around 104 schools or “settings” will be disrupted on top of 50 that have already been affected this year.
The Department for Education (DfE) said the “vast majority of schools and colleges will be unaffected by this change” – but Labour criticised the move as “staggering display of Tory incompetence”.
The type of concrete forcing the closures is Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete, known as RAAC.
It is the same type of concrete that has been found in some hospitals that have been deemed to be unsafe, prompting Health Secretary Steve Barclay to fast-track them into the government’s hospitals-building programme.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said: “Nothing is more important than making sure children and staff are safe in schools and colleges, which is why we are acting on new evidence about RAAC now, ahead of the start of term.
“We must take a cautious approach because that is the right thing to do for both pupils and staff.
“The plan we have set out will minimise the impact on pupil learning and provide schools with the right funding and support they need to put mitigations in place to deal with RAAC.”
Shapps appointment ‘so depressing’ – politics latest
Secretary of state must ‘get a grip on her department’
Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said the government was “failing” children by needing to close schools just before the new term started.
“This is an absolutely staggering display of Tory incompetence as they start a fresh term by failing our children again,” she said.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
England’s crumbling schools
“Dozens of England’s schools are at risk of collapse with just days before children crowd their corridors. Ministers have been content to let this chaos continue for far too long.
“It’s long past time the secretary of state got a grip on her department.”
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, also said the “news is shocking, sadly it is not hugely surprising”.
“What we are seeing here are the very real consequences of a decade of swingeing cuts to spending on school buildings,” he said.
“The government is right to put the safety of pupils and staff first – if the safety of buildings cannot be guaranteed, there is no choice but to close them so urgent building work can take place.
“But there is no escaping the fact that the timing of this couldn’t be worse, with children due to return from the summer holidays next week.”
The DfE said the majority of the school sites would remain open for face-to-face learning and only specific parts of buildings closed where RAAC is used.
It said a minority will need to either “fully or partially relocate to alternative accommodation” while mitigations are put in place.
Some hospitals deemed ‘unsafe’ because of RAAC
The department said the government has been aware of RAAC in public sector buildings since 1994 but the issue came to light in 2018, when a roof collapsed at a Kent school.
That year the DfE published guidance for schools stating the need to have “adequate contingencies” in the event of evacuations caused by concerns over the use of RAAC.
Read more:
Pupils face disruption at start of new school term due to probe into school buildings firm Caledonian Modular
Hundreds of crumbling schools to be renovated but critics say it won’t make up for ‘years of underfunding’
In June this year, the National Audit Office (NAO) said a school collapse in England that causes death or injury was “very likely” – but that the government did not have sufficient information to manage “critical” risks to the safety of pupils and staff.
Around 24,000 school buildings – more than a third of the total number in England – are beyond their estimated design lifespan – with school leaders branding the scale of building safety issues “shocking”.
Questions were also raised about the state of UK hospitals after Mr Barclay said that five new sites would be added to the government’s programme to build 40 new hospitals because the presence of RAAC made them unsafe to operate “beyond 2030”.
Five new sites – Airedale General in Keighley, Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn, Hinchingbrooke near Huntingdon, Leighton Hospital in Cheshire and Frimley Park in Surrey – were added to the programme as a priority.
An investigation has been launched into a former Reform MP over alleged racial abuse against a Sky News journalist.
The parliamentary standards commissioner is investigating James McMurdock, who was elected as a Reform MP last year but suspended himself after allegations emerged over loans he claimed during the pandemic.
Ben Obese-Jecty, the Conservative MP, wrote to the watchdog in August to urge an investigation into Mr McMurdock’s “use of social media to apparently facilitate racial abuse” against Sky News political correspondent Mhari Aurora.
Politics Live: Speaker grants emergency debate on Mandelson
The standards commissioner has now confirmed it will consider allegations that Mr McMurdock started an “N-Tower” on social media by posting the single letter “N” under an X post that was critical of Aurora.
This was described by Mr Obese-Jecty as “a means of using a racial slur against an individual on an online platform whilst circumventing moderation that would remove racially abusive content”.
He added: “The practice involves spelling out a racial slur vertically with each individual posting a single letter of the word in order to spell it vertically” as the posts appear below each other.
Mr McMurdock is under investigation for potentially breaching rule 11 of the House of Commons Code of Conduct.
This states: “Members shall never undertake any action which would cause significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the House of Commons as a whole, or of its Members generally.”
Ben Obese-Jecty. Pic: Parliament
Mr Obese-Jecty said in his complaint that the alleged actions of the former Reform MP “reflect a lack of adherence” to the seven principles of public life.
He said by “deleting the post without challenging the subsequent spelling” that was started by him, Mr McMurdock showed a “failure to challenge poor behaviour” and “absence of moral courage”.
Mr Obese-Jecty added: “Having repeatedly experienced this specific type of online racial abuse myself I am horrified that a fellow member of parliament would apparently see this as a legitimate means of challenging a Westminster lobby journalist in a public forum.
“I sincerely hope that there is a coherent and believable explanation for this horrendous action.”
At the time, Mr McMurdock appeared to deny he made the post, sharing a screenshot of X’s AI assistant Grok claiming he never posted the letter N, based on a screenshot of the N-Tower.
Grok is a large language model, which is known to be inaccurate.
He added that Mr Obese-Jecty’s “complaint regarding the alleged posting of a single letter is beyond ridiculous”.
Mr McMurdock has been contacted for comment.
Another former Conservative MP has defected to Reform UK.
Maria Caulfield, who served as the MP for Lewes for nearly a decade, as well as a government minister, is the 13th ex-Tory to join Nigel Farage’s party, which continues to gather momentum.
The announcement of her move on Tuesday follows sitting MP Danny Kruger’s decision to defect yesterday and head up Reform’s work to prepare for government.
Politics latest: MPs to debate Mandelson appointment and Epstein links
Ms Caulfield, a former health minister, told GB News: “If you are Conservative right-minded, then the future is Reform. The country is going to change a lot.
“The same people who thought that Brexit would not happen think that Reform will not happen. They are in for a shock.”
She added: “I have joined. My husband joined a few months ago and I joined a month ago.”
Reacting to the defection, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch admitted her party is having a “tough and bumpy time”, but reiterated her argument that it takes time to develop policies, and called on the public and her party to be patient.
Ms Caulfield is a former nurse, and her first ministerial job came in 2021, when she joined the Department for Health in Boris Johnson’s government.
After a spell on the backbenches during the brief premiership of Liz Truss, she was brought back into government under Rishi Sunak, becoming the minister responsible for mental health and women’s health.
She lost her seat at the 2024 general election to the Liberal Democrats, with her vote share having plummeted by nearly 22%.
‘We need to hold our nerve’
Her announcement follows that of Danny Kruger, the MP for East Wiltshire, who announced his move at a press conference alongside Nigel Farage on Monday.
He said the Conservative Party is “over”, and Reform is now the primary vehicle for conservatism.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Sitting MP Danny Kruger defects to Reform UK.
But shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride said his analysis was “profoundly wrong”.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It is certainly the case that we had a devastating defeat about a year ago, that we lost that connection with the electorate, that trust with the electorate, and it is also true that it will take us time to rebuild that.”
He added: “We need to hold our nerve.”
The US Federal Reserve is expected to cut rates, which could prove a bullish signal for crypto markets.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment12 months agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024