Labour seeks vote on schools RAAC repairs funding

Labour will attempt to force the government to release documents on what Rishi Sunak knew about unsafe concrete in schools when he was deciding on funding repairs as chancellor.

More than 100 schools in England have been told to fully or partially close due to the risk of crumbling concrete.

Labour says Mr Sunak's past decisions on funding have led to the disruption.

The PM has said claims he was to blame for the problems were "utterly wrong".

Schools with buildings containing reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) were told last week they would have to introduce safety measures.

The developing crisis has raised questions about the money provided by the government to pay for maintaining school buildings.

Using a piece of parliamentary procedure called a humble address, Labour will hold a vote in the House of Commons on Wednesday to obtain certain documents that could shed more light on the funding.

These include submissions of evidence from the Department for Education (DfE) sent to both No 10 and the Treasury, as well as related correspondence, when spending decisions were being made between 2020 and 2022.

This period covers the time when Mr Sunak was chancellor.

On Monday, Jonathan Slater, a former senior civil servant in the education department, said that analysis from 2019 had found that between 300 and 400 schools needed replacing each year.

Mr Slater told the BBC the department had initially secured funding for 100 a year, but that Mr Sunak later took the decision to "halve the size of the programme".

Schools Minister Nick Gibb acknowledged his department had put in a bid for 200 refurbishments a year in 2021 but the Treasury had only funded 50.

He also said that since Mr Sunak became prime minister, £4bn had been added to revenue funding for schools in England, meaning £59.6bn would be in the budget next year, a "record amount".

The DfE has said that so far, of the 500 schools it has committed to rebuilding by 2030, only four have been completed. The department says it expects the rate to increase towards the end of the decade.

Announcing her party's plan to force a release of documents, Labour's shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: "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.

"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."