This is Sunak admitting that he knows about 1,100 schools that are affected (22,000 with ONLY 95% affected = 1,100 affected). With 50 new schools a year being rebuild/refurbed, this would equate to a 22 year plan to fix only the currently identifiably ones.
We have the Education Secretary Gillian Keegan, who seems to think she should be congratulated for this and not criticised.
The PMs official spokesman has said:
no definitive number could be given on the number of schools affected by potentially dangerous RAAC concrete, but confirmed hundreds could be impacted.
He does not say what numbers they have currently. Labour have been requesting this information for a year now under the Freedom of Information channels. All with no success, because Sunak wants the information hidden.
It is only 1,100 schools. If we had a conservative 500 pupils in each school, then we have had over half a million (550,000) kids running a lottery everyday they have gone to school this year. The consequences of loosing that lottery could easily be death or life changing injuries. We are not talking about bits of plaster falling here. This is the structural support of a lot of buildings.
There really is no way Sunak can deflect the blame for this.
Jonathan Slater, who was permanent secretary at the Department for Education from May 2016 to August 2020, claimed the Treasury had failed to fully fund school rebuilding schemes – including while Mr Sunak was chancellor.
He said he was “absolutely amazed” that a decision was made after he left the department to halve the school rebuilding programme.
Mr Slater said up to 400 schools a year need to be replaced, but the DfE got funding for 100 while he was the senior official, which was “frustrating”.
Well, he is the PM. So the buck stops with him. I say its fair to put the blame on him.
Responsibility or blame?
I say Responsibility because he’s the PM now and so taking responsibility comes with that job.
Blame for this part in not already fixing this, back when he was chancellor. Bumping this problem down the road and hoping it’s someone else’s problem is something I can definitely blame him for
And given that his party is in power for longer than kids go to school, they might have done something way earlier.
The relevant bit from Mr Slater on The Today programme is here at 1:12:53
Listening to it properly, there really is no dodging the blame. Sunak should be held accountable if someone is injured. He took the decision after all to endanger lives.
