Thousands of pupils had the start of their term disrupted by the discovery of RAAC, as some schools had to close buildings or classrooms.
Of these, most have all pupils in face-to-face education, while one is fully remote, two have a mix of arrangements, and one is still establishing how to proceed.
There is now only one school which is fully remote – down from four before, while 23 are operating a mix of face-to-face and remote.
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In total, 174 schools have been found to have RAAC, with 98.6% of schools asked having returned the government’s surveys.
The schools newly found to have RAAC are:
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Ark John Keats Academy
Avenue Centre for Education
Baildon Church of England Primary School
Baskerville School
Buttsbury Junior School
Colyton Grammar School
Eldwick Primary School
Farlingaye High School
Farnborough College of Technology
Grantham College
Kingsbury High School
Marling School
Maryvale Catholic Primary School
Merrylands Primary School
Mulberry Stepney Green Mathematics and Computing College
Myton School
Ortu Corringham Primary School and Nursery
Ravens Academy
Selworthy Special School
St Joseph’s Catholic Voluntary Academy
Steeple Bumpstead Primary School
Stepney All Saints Church of England Secondary School
Surrey Street Primary School
The Link School
The Macclesfield Academy
Marple Sixth Form College (part of Trafford College Group)
The Royal Navy will get 25 new warships – and could get three more – as the government indicates where its planned rise in defence spending will go.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps told Sky News there are 28 new ships and submarines in the design or construction stage at the moment for the UK’s armed forces.
He clarified that 22 ships are “already in the system” – but there is less clarity over six new warships he announced for the Royal Marines today.
The defence secretary said that the government is committing to three of the new “versatile” ships for the Marines, “and then possibly another three as well”.
He said this is a “very, very large shipbuilding programme, a lot of warships, the golden era of shipbuilding here”.
Mr Shapps added: “It’s all possible because just last month we agreed as a government to spend 2.5% of our GDP on our defence sector because we think it’s very, very important to make sure that those who would seek to do us harm are put off, that they are dissuaded because they can see that we’re serious about our defence.”
But defence spending fell in the early years of the Conservative government, which has been in power for 14 years, and spending was not boosted when Ukraine was invaded in 2014 or 2022.
Mr Shapps said the Tory pledge is different to Labour’s because the Conservatives have “set out a timeline”.
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“We’ve also said how we would go about largely funding this, and that’s by reducing the size of the civil service, which is much bigger than it was before COVID,” he said.
“We want to get it back down to the size it was before and use that money to spend on defence.
“I have to say, as defence secretary, with everything that I know in this role, that I think that the Labour position presents a danger to this country because it will send a signal to our adversaries that we’re not serious about our defence if we won’t set out that timetable.”
Labour’s shadow work and pensions minister Alison McGovern said she is “sceptical” about the Conservatives’ claim about how they will fund the spending rise.
She said Labour has had to pledge the rise for when the economy allows “because of what the Conservative Party have done to our economy” – as she accused Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak of implementing “big unfunded tax cuts”.
Ms McGovern added: “I think everybody would expect Rachel Reeves as the shadow chancellor to say, well, we will make our plans when we’ve got access to all of the books, all of the details of Ministry of Defence spending.”
Mr Shapps said the government did not spend as much on defence previously because countries such as China, North Korea, Iran and Russia were not such a threat.
The defence secretary added: “We were living in very, very different times.”
He said the government has also added £24bn to the defence budget over the past couple of years and the UK is “by a country mile the largest spender on defence in Europe, with the second largest in NATO after only the US”.
Discussing the UK’s current fleet, Mr Shapps said sister ships HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark are due to come out of service in 2033-2034 but the defence secretary said they will not be scrapped before that.
Albion and Bulwark are currently used as the Royal Navy’s landing platform docks to transport the Royal Marines.
Mr Shapps also announced HMS Argyll and HMS Westminster, two frigates with a combined service of 63 years, are to be retired, with HMS Argyll sold to BAE Systems to be used to support apprentice shipbuilder training.
The new ships being built include Type 26 and Type 31 frigates in Scotland, Astute and Dreadnought submarines in Barrow-in-Furness, and Fleet Solid Support ships in Belfast and Devon.
If the Justice Dept. prevails in the case against the cryptocurrency mixer, internet service providers and the post office may also be liable to transmitter requirements, they said.