Afternoon summary
Keir Starmer has likened Rishi Sunak’s government to a group of “cowboy builders” during a prime minister’s questions in which the Labour leader sought to portray the prime minister as out of touch over the concrete crisis. Earlier, in a TV interview, Starmer accused Sunak of prioritising cutting taxes on champagne over providing the necessary funding for school building repairs.
MPs have voted down a Labour motion saying the government should publish internal documents giving details of what funding the Department for Education wanted for school repairs when Rishi Sunak was chancellor, and how the Treasury responded. Within the last few minutes the Labour motion was defeated by 309 votes to 175. Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, said that governments had to be able to discuss policy options in private, and that any documents that were published would not provide a full picture of why decisions were taken. (See 3.09pm.)
Updated
Nicola Sturgeon addresses Scottish parliament for first time since standing down as first minister
Nicola Sturgeon has made her first speech in the Holyrood chamber since she stepped down as first minister in April.
Contributing to the debate that follows the programme for government – Holyrood’s equivalent of the king’s speech – she was inevitably supportive of Humza Yousaf’s policy platform set out yesterday, although it has since been criticised by anti-poverty campaigners as “timid” and dismissed as a “rehash” and a “Nicola Sturgeon tribute act” by opposition leaders.
Sturgeon picked out his expansion of her own initiatives on childcare and children in care for especial praise, and went on to challenge MSPs on polarisation in politics, which has been a favourite theme of hers since she first resigned in February.
She had to rush her speech at the end, speaking over the deputy presiding officer, who was urging her to wrap up, and inadvertently called her “first minister”, an indication of the strangeness of the situation. It’s jarring to see the person who previously commanded the chamber on the backbenches, and equally hard not to view that command in the context of what has come next: the unravelling of the SNP’s public support and internal unity, and her own arrest along with her husband, the former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, in relation to the ongoing police investigation into party finances.
She also concluded that campaigning for independence “won’t stop me arguing for a more incremental expansion of our powers along the way”, something she was criticised for not doing enough of when in power.
Doorstepped by reporters afterwards, she said it had been a “very different” experience delivering her first backbench speech in almost 20 years: it was a “good experience and I look forward to contributing more in weeks and months to come”, she said.
Updated
Irish PM says he will decide in coming weeks whether to challenge UK's Troubles legacy bill at ECHR
Leo Varadkar, the taoiseach (Irish PM) has said he will make a decision in the coming weeks on whether to launch a legal challenge against the UK government’s Northern Ireland Troubles (legacy and reconciliation) bill, PA Media reports.
The bill, which is close to finishing its passage through parliament, includes a form of limited immunity for some perpetrators of crimes committed during the Northern Ireland Troubles and would also prevent future civil cases and inquests into legacy offences.
The bill is opposed by all main parties in Northern Ireland, with unionists particularly concerned that it could lead to republican terrorists evading punishment for killings committed during the Troubles, and republicans particularly concerned that members of the armed forces and security services who committed atrocities could be exonerated.
The Irish government has already said that, if the bill becomes law, it may challenge it at the European court of human rights, on the grounds it breaches ECHR provisions saying states have a duty to ensure murders are properly investigated.
Varadkar told reporters today:
The Irish government’s position has been very clear on this all along: we think this is a mistake, this is the wrong way to go about dealing with legacy issues in Northern Ireland.
There aren’t many things that all of the five main parties in Northern Ireland agree on but they all agreed this is wrong, and this is not victim-centred and not human rights proofed.
I’ve said that to the prime minister, the tánaiste [Micheál Martin – the Irish deputy PM] has said it to his counterparts on many occasions. I’ll say it again to the secretary of state when I see him next week.
Varadkar said the Irish government would decide whether or not to challenge the legislation in court within the next few weeks.
The attorney general’s preparing some legal advice on what the strength would be of us taking a case to the European court of human rights, essentially saying that this bill, this act, is not compliant with the European convention on human rights, of which United Kingdom is a signatory.
I will make a decision on whether or not we pursue a case in the coming weeks.
Updated
According to the Liberal Democrats, there are 36 schools in England in constituencies where the MP is a Conservative minister that have a problem with Raac. In a news release the Lib Dems says:
There are a staggering eight crumbling schools in business secretary Kemi Badenoch’s constituency of Saffron Walden, and another two in foreign secretary James Cleverly’s Braintree seat, and one in Michael Gove’s backyard of Surrey Heath.
Five of the schools are in education ministers’ constituencies, including four in skills minister Robert Halfon’s Harlow constituency and one in children’s minister David Johnson’s seat of Wantage.
Updated
The University and College Union says its members at 136 universities will strike for five consecutive days from Monday 25 to Friday 29 September. Strikes will hit four Scottish universities on slightly different dates to coincide with local action by other unions.
The UCU general secretary, Jo Grady, said:
We have sought to settle this dispute at every opportunity, including agreeing to a joint review of sector finances, but we are faced with employers that want to see staff and students suffer.
We desperately hope vice-chancellors realise we are going nowhere without a fair settlement and make us a realistic offer.
If they do not, campuses will be marred by picket lines during freshers’ week, and we will launch a new strike ballot allowing us to take action well into 2024.
Updated
UK reportedly poised to rejoin Horizon, EU's science research funding programme
At PMQs Rishi Sunak was asked whether Britain will rejoin Horizon, the EU’s massive and widely respected science research funding programme. Sunak implied a positive announcement was coming soon. (See 12.39pm.)
According to Alex Wickham from Bloomberg, Sunak has agreed to rejoin.
— Sunak gives go ahead to rejoining Horizon
— as part of deal: two sides negotiating level of compensation EU will pay the UK for locking it out of the program for two years, per sources familiar
— Sunak gives go ahead to rejoining Horizon
— Alex Wickham (@alexwickham) September 6, 2023
— as part of deal: two sides negotiating level of compensation EU will pay the UK for locking it out of the program for two years, per sources familiar
With @kitty_donaldson @AlbertoNardelli @EllenAMilliganhttps://t.co/KT3oVsG0LI
And this is from Sky’s Sam Coates.
As per Bloomberg, Britain poised to rejoin the EU Horizon programme I’ve been told.
Final calls with VDL [Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European commission] may be this afternoon, then announcement possibly tomorrow or at the G20 when Sunak and VDL together
I’m told UK will claim they got a good deal with “catchup” money to effectively compensate scientists who were out of the programme for 2 years
As per Bloomberg, Britain poised to rejoin the EU Horizon programme I’ve been told.
— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) September 6, 2023
Final calls with VDL maybe this afternoon, then announcement possibly tomorrow or at the G20 when Sunak and VDL together
I’m told UK will claim they got a good deal with “catchup” money to…
Updated
College lecturers union UCU calls off marking boycott
The University and College Union has ended its marking and assessment boycott after a consultation with its members.
The long-running boycott caused disruption at a number of universities and departments across the UK this year, with some final-year students unable to graduate or receive a degree classification because work or exams had not been graded.
However, UCU is still looking to hold further strike action later in the academic year, as part of its continuing dispute with university employers over pay and working conditions.
Updated
Andrew Bridgen, the former Tory MP who now represents Reclaim, did not explicitly say that vaccines were causing excess deaths when he asked about lockdown policy during PMQs, although that seemed to be what he was implying. I have amended the post about his question to make that clear. It now includes the full text of what he said, so you can decide for yourselves what you think he meant. See 12.23pm.
A reader asks:
Is the Raac issue a problem for private schools, just out of interest?
My colleagues who cover education tell me the answer is yes, Raac almost certainly is an issue for private schools too. But we don’t know the extent of it yet because the Department for Education has not surveyed them. Here is one example of an independent school affected by the problem. Experts say if private schools have buildings that went up between the 1960s and 1980s, when Raac was widely used, they should be checking them.
UPDATE: Asked about the issue of Raac in private schools, a spokesperson for the Independent Schools Council said:
Independent schools have not been included in the Department for Education’s survey relating to school buildings and Raac. We have heard reports of Raac in a very small number independent schools, but this is not definitive – and many independent schools do not sit within the ISC. Independent schools are being actively provided with all relevant government advice and guidance. These documents make clear that it is for governing bodies and proprietors of independent schools to make checks and ensure their buildings are safe.
Updated
In the Commons Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, said it would be inaccurate, incomplete and inappropriate to release the information requested by Labour in its “humble address” motion. (See 2.43pm.)
She argued that the information would be inaccurate because it would not give a full picture of all the arguments being considered during the spending round. It would be incomplete, because decisions about school spending had to be taken in the context of what was happening to spending in other areas, she said. And it would be inappropriate because there was a longstanding acceptance that government should be able to debate policy options in private, she said.
UPDATE: Keegan said:
Inaccurate because it would only show part of the picture of a complex decision-making process that takes place between multiple departments, multiple ministers, officials and other individuals with varying priorities.
Incomplete because such a process has to look across the board at priorities and trade-offs for all government departments to ensure we can deliver for everyone, yet this motion focuses on only one.
Inappropriate because it would be categorically in breach of the longstanding tradition and expectation of confidential and often commercially sensitive information not being disclosed into the public domain, and of allowing officials to give full and frank advice to ministers.
Updated
A reader asks:
I see the latest update about “MPs start debate on Labour motion calling for release of government papers about school repair funding”. This sounds like a re-run of very similar motion on 2023-05-23. Do we know if Labour are targeting Raac specifically this time?
This is interesting because it shows (contrary to what Rishi Sunak was suggesting at PMQs) that Labour has been raising this issue for a while. Here is the Hansard from the May debate. Labour was asking for the release of “a document or dataset containing the detailed school level data, including condition grades for individual building elements for all schools, from the latest Condition of School Buildings Survey”.
As usually happens when opposition day motions are put to a vote, Labour lost.
Today’s “humble address” motion is different. Labour is asking for the release of:
(a) submissions from the Department for Education to HM Treasury related to the spending reviews in 2020 and 2021; and
(b) all papers, advice, and correspondence, including submissions and electronic communications (including communications with and from Ministers and Special Advisers) within and between the Cabinet Office (including the Office of the Prime Minister), the Department for Education and HM Treasury relating to these submissions concerned with school buildings.
Gillian Keegan accuses Labour of descending 'into political gutter' in its campaigning on Raac
In the Commons Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, is now speaking on behalf of the government in the debate on the Labour motion.
In her opening remarks she claimed that Labour had descended “into the political gutter” in its handling of the Raac school building crisis.
And, challenged to explain why her department was spending £34m on an office refurbishment when that money could have been spent on schools, she said that the decision to spent that money had been signed off by the commercial director at the Department for Education in 2019. She said it wasn’t, and shouldn’t, have been a decision for ministers.
UPDATE: Keegan said:
£34 million is a government building for the Department for Education that was signed off by the commercial director for the Department for Education, nothing to do with me, based on a decision made in 2019 before I was a minister.
Updated
Here are comments from two commentators on Rishi Sunak’s decision to describe Keir Starmer as “Captain Hindsight” at PMQs.
From ITV’s Robert Peston
I was intrigued that at #PMQs the prime minister denigrated Keir Starmer as ‘Captain Hindsight’. This was Boris Johnson’s favourite jibe. It achieves precisely the opposite of what I thought Sunak wanted to achieve, namely that it inextricably links him to his contentious predecessor
I was intrigued that at #PMQs the prime minister denigrated Keir Starmer as ‘Captain Hindsight’. This was Boris Johnson’s favourite jibe. It achieves precisely the opposite of what I thought Sunak wanted to achieve, namely that it inextricably links him to his contentious…
— Robert Peston (@Peston) September 6, 2023
From the FT’s Stefan Stern
Another problem with “Capt Hindsight” as an insult is that, with hindsight, quite a lot of people seem to be regretting voting Conservative. There’s a lot of hindsight out there. #PMQs
Another problem with "Capt Hindsight" as an insult is that, with hindsight, quite a lot of people seem to be regretting voting Conservative. There's a lot of hindsight out there. #PMQs
— stefanstern (@stefanstern) September 6, 2023
Peers are being urged to permanently delete amendments to the levelling up bill that would allow housebuilders to get away with polluting England’s most sensitive rivers with sewage.
The amendments, drafted by Michael Gove, are coming before the Lords either today or next Wednesday. They are aimed at getting rid of nutrient neutrality rules, which are part of the EU’s habitats directive. If the bill passes, it will be the first time England has ripped up an EU derived environment law.
The Green party peer Jenny Jones plans to force a vote on the amendment to get it permanently deleted from the bill. This would force the government to bring the measure back in a separate bill and possibly delay it to beyond the next general election.
Two years ago Jones helped to lead a Lords rebellion that successfully blocked an 18-page government amendment to the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill and forced the government to return with a separate bill.
This move would be additional to a rebellion by the Duke of Wellington and Tory peers including former minister Zac Goldsmith, who are backing an amendment that would cancel out Gove’s.
Jones is urging the Labour party, which has sat on the fence on this issue, to join her and the Liberal Democrats in her quest to save England’s sensitive wetlands, such as the Norfolk Broads.
Jones said:
The Lords were lied to by the government about not lowering environmental standards. These amendments to the levelling up bill give peers a great opportunity to correct the mistake we made in giving ground to ministers on keeping our long standing system of environmental protections.
Updated
MPs start debate on Labour motion calling for release of government papers about school repair funding
In the Commons Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, is now opening the debate on Labour’s “humble address” motion. (See 2.05pm.)
During PMQs Keir Starmer did not repeat the line he used on BBC Breakfast this morning about Rishi Sunak prioritising a tax cut for champagne drinkers ahead of investment in school repairs. (See 9.34am.) But Phillipson repeated the point in her opening remarks.
Phillipson also said she was glad that the Department for Education had published a list of schools affected by Raac. But she said was concerned that there might be omissions from it.
Updated
Labour is using its opposition day debate this afternoon to hold a vote on a “humble address” motion that, if passed, would force the government to publish internal documents about the Department for Education’s demands for extra money for school repairs in 2020 and 2021, and the Treasury’s response. It wants to obtain written evidence to support the claim that Rishi Sunak, as chancellor, halved spending on school repairs.
At the post-PMQs lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson said the government was opposed to publishing this information voluntarily. He said:
We don’t as a matter of course publish advice to prime ministers, or ministers. I’m not aware of any plans to change that longstanding approach.
Downing Street said it did not recognise the claim that Sunak as chancellor had halved funding for school repairs.
The spokesperson also declined to say how long it would take to resolve the Raac crisis. He said:
Whilst there are still some outstanding surveys we cannot put a specific timeline on it.
In the instances where we have identified Raac we expect mitigations to be put in place in a number of weeks.
PMQs - snap verdict
Facing what was always going to be a tricky PMQs, Rishi Sunak performed much better than might have been expected in his exchanges with Keir Starmer and at times he was even ahead. But it was also hopeless. Both assessments can be true at that same time.
On the plus side, Sunak did quite well because he sounded super-confident and, on the Raac issue, for many of the questions, he had answers.
Schools affected? That list has been published, he said.
Impact on pupils? “In the majority of cases children will attend school as normal and the mitigations take typically just days or weeks to complete,” he insisted.
Scrapping the Building Schools for the Future programme? It excluded 80% of schools, the NAO found it “a third more expensive than it needed to be” and a later review said it was “time consuming and expensive”, he said.
And – perhaps the most serious charge – halving the school repair budget as chancellor? Sunak insisted the money he set aside for school maintenance and rebuilding in his spending review as chancellor represented a 20% increase on the years before.
Some of this might not pass muster with the fact-checkers. But, in the cut and thrust of debate, Sunak sounded to his MPs like someone who had a response to the questions he was facing. Conservative MPs will have also enjoyed his questionable claim about Starmer not raising the Raac issue in the past. “Exactly the type of political opportunism we’ve come to expect from Captain Hindsight,” he said, in a jibe that chimes a bit with voters, and a lot more with the Tory press.
But there is an obvious, massive, and election-losing problem with this line of attack. If you are leader of the opposition, “political opportunism” is part of the job description. Starmer did not need to trip Sunak up with forensic questioning today. All he had to do was channel the frustrations of people who feel the government is failing, and he did this very, very ably.
His best line was probably this one.
The truth is this crisis is the inevitable result of 13 years of cutting corners, botched jobs, sticking-plaster politics. It’s the sort of thing you expect from cowboy builders saying that everyone else is wrong, everyone else is blame, protesting they’ve done an effing good job, even as the ceiling falls in. The difference, Mr Speaker, is that in this case the cowboys are running the country. Isn’t he ashamed that after 13 years of tory governmnt children are cowering under steel supports, stopping their classroom roof falling in?
Starmer was articulating what people think. Whether that’s what most people think or just what many people think does not really matter, because it’s what enough people think (the polls suggest). So he prevailed.
Is there anything Sunak could have said or done to avert this? Probably not. The Financial Times has just published a column by Robert Shrimsley which explains why perfectly. It is headlined “Sunak’s problem is that Britain has stopped listening to the Tories” and it starts:
One of John Major’s cabinet ministers once likened the relationship with voters in the last years to a couple heading for divorce, glaring at each other over the toast and where “even the sound of the milk on the cornflakes is a source of irritation”.
In those final months, Tory MPs stopped believing they could win the next election, leadership contenders prioritised their own ambitions and media supporters argued over how to shape the party after a defeat. Above all, voters simply stopped listening to the Tories. No matter that Major was a decent man and Kenneth Clarke an impressive chancellor, the public had seen enough. Efforts to change the narrative were consumed by bad news, gaffes or minor scandals which seemed to epitomise the decay.
This must all sound familiar to Rishi Sunak. Once again we see a government with a studious premier and a capable chancellor trying to appear fresh after too many years in power. And yet, as one ally laments: “The country doesn’t seem interested in what we are saying.”
Sunak’s problem is that Britain has stopped listening to the Tories via @FT
— robert shrimsley (@robertshrimsley) September 6, 2023
https://t.co/WiNzH28uzw
If the electorate isn’t paying attention any more, then no matter what you say, you just can’t win.
Updated
No 10 denies Labour claims Sunak misled MPs when he accused Starmer of not raising Raac problem in past
Downing Street is defending what Rishi Sunak said at PMQs about Keir Starmer not having raised the school building safety issue before. Labour says Sunak was wrong, because Starmer did talk about it in his education speech in July. (See 12.46pm.) Starmer said in the speech:
So – for his Tory party to turn around afterwards and repay their sacrifice with nothing, to sit there twiddling their thumbs as teachers leave in their droves, school buildings start to crumble and absenteeism goes through the roof – that’s shameful.
But No 10 says Sunak was specifically talking about Raac.
This is from the Sun’s Harry Cole.
JUST IN: No10 sticking to guns that Starmer speech did not mention RAAC after PMQs dig.
“PM was talking about RAAC, and there has been new information recently. Starmers speech did not reference RAAC once.”
JUST IN: No10 sticking to guns that Starmer speech did not mention RAAC after PMQs dig.
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) September 6, 2023
“PM was talking about RAAC, and there has been new information recently. Starmers speech did not reference RAAC once.” https://t.co/NpKjQihna7
UPDATE: During PMQs Sunak said:
Before today, [Starmer] never once raised this issue with me in parliament, it wasn’t even worthy of a single mention in his so-called landmark speech on education this summer.
And at the post-PMQs lobby briefing, when it was put to her that Starmer had mentioned the state of school building in his education speech, the PM’s press secretary replied:
The prime minister was clearly talking about Raac and Starmer did not mention Raac in his speech.
Updated
Alexander Stafford, a Conservative MP, rises to make a retaliatory point of order. He says that Keir Starmer spoke about the Department for Education spending £34m refurbishing “Tory” offices. But in fact they are Whitehall offices, he says.
Hoyle says Stafford has put this on the record.
Labour says Sunak misled Commons when he accused Starmer of not raising school building safety issue before
Lucy Powell, the new shadow leader of the Commons, raises a point of order. She says Rishi Sunak said Keir Starmer had not raised school building safety before, including in his speech in the summer. But he did mention it in the speech. And Labour MPs have raised the issue more than 180 times, she says. Will Sunak correct the record?
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, says Powell has now corrected the record herself. He says Sunak (who has gone) will be told about what Powell has said.
Updated
Chris Law (SNP) says the Tories and Labour are “two cheeks of the same arse”.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, says Law should consider his language.
Law says he is happy to say they are two cheeks of the same bottom. Does the PM agree that the Scots would be better off independent?
Obviously not, says Sunak. But he says that question was aimed at Starmer.
Updated
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Con) asks when the government will publish a childhood cancer action plan.
Sunak says a plan is being published. He will write to Dinenage to give her “a sense of timing”, he says.
Updated
Mary Glindon (Lab) asks if Sunak will stop prevaricating and sign the UK up to the EU’s Horizon programme.
Sunak says the government’s preference is to associate with Horizon, but it wants to do that on terms that are right for the taxpayer. He says he hopes to be able to conclude the negotiations successfully, and when he does he hopes Glindon will be pleased.
William Wragg (Con) asks if Sunak supports early-intervention mental health hubs.
Sunak says the Department of Health is looking at the role these hubs could play. He offers to meet Wragg to discuss this.
Updated
Ian Mearns (Lab) asks about transport in the north-east of England. He asks about funding for a restored rail line to Durham.
Sunak says he cannot comment on specific projects. But he says since 2010 the government has spent a third more on transport in the north-east than Labour did in its last six years in power.
UPDATE: I have changed one word above to make it clear Mearns was talking about a restored rail line, not a new one. A reader tells me:
It’s not a new railway but a disused railway, the Leamside line. The track was lifted some years ago but most of the trackbed and other infrastructure including bridges are still intact and the repoening would virtually fourtrack the east coast mainline between south of Durham and Newcastle.
Updated
Keir Starmer did mention the state of school buildings in his education speech, contrary to what Rishi Sunak alleged a few minutes ago, Adam Bienkov from Byline Times points out.
Rishi Sunak says collapsing schools "wasn't even worthy of a single mention" in Keir Starmer's education speech this summer.
— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) September 6, 2023
Here's the section of Starmer's speech back in July in which he specifically mentioned crumbling schools. #PMQs pic.twitter.com/Qt1srPcEDX
Andy McDonald (Lab) says government talk of levelling up and tackling the attainment gap sounds hollow when pupils in his constituency are being taught in temporary accommodation.
Sunak says he does not know the details of this case, but he defends the government’s education record generally.
Stephen Metcalfe (Con) asks the government to support making defibrillators more available.
Sunak says the government has set up a fund to pay for this.
Updated
Luke Pollard (Lab) asks if the government will tighten gun laws in the light of the Plymouth shooting.
Sunak says rules on information sharing have already been tightened, and guidance for the police has changed. The Home Office is considering further changes, he says.
Craig Mackinlay (Con) says a UK supplier selling boats to the EU has to comply with CE registration. But this does not apply of boats for use by people smugglers are imported into the EU from Turkey.
Sunak says the government is trying to disrupt the supply of boat parts, and has increased joint operations with Turkey.
Fleur Anderson (Lab) asks about the pollution caused by wet wipes. When will the government implement its plan to ban them if they contain plastic?
Sunak says a consultation on this will be launched later this year.
Rachel Hopkins (Lab) asks why Sunak breached the code of conduct for MPs when he promised a government of honesty and accountability.
Sunak says, if Hopkins reads the rull report, she will read his explanation, and see this was just a minor breach. He implies Starmer has also been criticised by the parliamentary commissioner for standards in similar terms.
Andrew Bridgen, the former Tory MP who now represents Reclaim, asks about lockdown policy and why Sunak is not talking about excess deaths. He seems to be suggesting vaccines are to blame, but he does not say this explicitly.
He faces loud barracking, apparently from Tories.
Sunak says there is an inquiry into Covid.
UPDATE: I have changed the wording of this post to make it clear that Bridgen did not explicitly claim vaccines were causing excess deaths, even though that seemed to be what he was referring to.
Here is his question in full.
Last week, the prime minister stated that he was “proud” of his furlough scheme. I wonder if he is equally proud of the £400bn he put on the national debt and the inflation it has caused. Is he proud of the jobs lost, businesses closed and lives crushed due to the lockdowns? Is he proud of the increased NHS waiting lists, premature deaths and the 1 million young people now needing mental health support? Finally, is he proud of the excess deaths affecting every one of our constituencies that nobody wants to talk about, and will he give an undertaking to the British public—a solemn undertaking—that they will never be inflicted upon them again?
Updated
Greg Smith (Con) asks when Sunak will implement the pledge he made when standing for the Tory leadership to stop farming land being used for solar panels.
Sunak says the planning rules now say there is a firm preference for these to go on brownfield sites.
Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminster, says the economy is stagnant. When will Sunak get of fhis backside and do something about it?
Sunak says the SNP used to criticse the government’s record on growth. But, now the figures have been revised, it should acknowledge that the UK has made the fastest recovery in the G7 since Covid.
Flynn says Gillian Keegan was referring to Sunak earlier this week when she said people were doing nothing.
Sunak says Flynn is out of practice. He has forgotten the government help for people with energy bills.
Starmer says Sunak cut school budgets because he felt other people’s families would be affected. Sunak is not willing to protect other people’s children, he says.
Sunak says Starmer has not listened to anything he has said about his spending plans. And of course Starmer has been able to name the schools affected because that information has been published.
He says Starmer is trying to score political points. But he has no tmentioned other things that have happened over the summer – energy bills down, inflation down, small boat crossings down, and growth up.
Starmer says Labour MPs tabled many questions about Raac. Gillian Keegan approved a project to spend £34m refurbishing her own office. Why is that better use of taxpayers’ money than stopping schools collapsing?
Sunak says the government acted decisively in response to new information. That was the right thing to do. He says the DfE started assessing the problem last year. But in Labour-run Wales they still do not know which schools have Raac.
He again defends his education spending settlement. And he says he spent £5bn on a programme to help pupils to catch up after Covid, while Labour wanted lockdown extended.
Starmer accuses Tories of governing Britain like cowboy builders
Starmer says the situation is like one where you have cowboy builders, only in this case “the cowboys are running the country”.
Sunak says this is “exactly the type of political opportunism we’ve come to expect from Captain Hindsight”.
Previously Starmer never raised this issue, he says. And he says Starmer did not raise this in his landmark speech on education earlier this year. If Labour had been in charge, the lockdown would have gone on longer. Students are more likely to go to university now. And we have the best readers in the world, he says.
UPDATE: Starmer said:
The truth is this crisis is the inevitable result of 13 years of cutting corners, botched jobs, sticking plaster politics. It’s the sort of thing you expect from cowboy builders saying that everyone else is wrong, everyone else is blame, protesting they’ve done an effing good job, even as the ceiling falls in. The difference, Mr Speaker, is that in this case the cowboys are running the country. Isn’t he ashamed that after 13 years of tory governemnt children are cowering under steel supports, stopping their classroom roof falling in?
Updated
Starmer says schools were affected by the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future programme. He challenges Sunak to publish the paperwork about the DfE’s requests for extra funding.
Sunak says the programme was flawed. An independent review concluded it was “time-consuming and expensive”. Sunak adds: “Just like the Labour party.”
Updated
Sunak rejects claim he cut budgets for school repairs, saying he raised it by 20%
Starmer says the head of the NAO has said that government underfunding was a problem, and the DfE permanent secretary said Sunak did not give the department the money it needed. Why does everyone else think Sunak is to blame?
Sunak says the assessment of the Raac risk has changed over time. And he says he did not cut budgets for school repairs. In fact, they went up by 20% under his plans, he says.
And, during the debates on the spending review, Labour did not raise Raac once.
Before he jumps on the next political bandwagon, he should get his facts straight.
Updated
Keir Starmer starts by talking about the collapse of a roof in a school in Gravesend in 2018. But two years later Sunak halved the budget for school maintenance. Does Sunak think, like Gillian Keegan, he should be thanked?
Sunak says the vast majority of schools are not affected. Only 1% of schools have been affected. In those cases, schools are getting a caseworker. In most cases, pupils will continue to attend school. And mitigations will only take days or weeks.
Updated
Sunak says it is “disappointing” that Keir Starmer “allowed” Sadiq Khan to introduce the Ulez extension.
Starmer, of course, has no authority over the London mayor, who in expanding Ulez was implementing a policy encouraged by the UK government.
Sunak starts by praising the Lionesses, and sending his condolences to the family of Graham Saville, the police officer killed on duty recently.
From the i’s Paul Waugh
In #PMQs, Gillian Keegan is seated several seats away from the PM. Surely he should have her by his side today?
— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) September 6, 2023
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
Rishi Sunak faces Keir Starmer at PMQs
PMQs is about to start.
The DfE list shows pupils at 24 schools across England will receive some remote learning because of the concrete crisis, with four schools switching to fully remote learning, PA Media reports.
And the list shows 19 schools where the start of term has had to be delayed as a result of collapse-prone concrete.
Department for Education publishes list of schools in England affected by Raac
The Department for Education has just published a full list of schools in England where Raac has been confirmed and mitigations are in place. The DfE promised to publish this before the end of the week and, as is so often the case, the prospect of the PM facing questions at noon on Wednesday has had a miraculous effect in terms of speeding up the release of information.
You can see read more here:
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Shapps rejects claim scrapping Building Schools for Future programme led to Raac crisis
During his media round this morning Grant Shapps, the new defence secretary, rejected union claims that, if the government had not cancelled the Building Schools for the Future programme in 2010, the Raac school building crisis may have been averted. (See 10.06am.)
Shapps said that Building Schools for the Future only applied to secondary schools, and that most of the schools with Raac problems now are primary schools. He went on:
We didn’t think it [BSF] was the right programme to take forward, but many of those schools have had other remedial work or building work done in the meantime.
So I don’t think just sticking to what happened to be a previous policy is the answer to what would have still been a problem today.
Starmer says Birmingham council's bankruptcy symptom of how Tories have left 'complete mess everywhere'
Keir Starmer has said that Birmingham city council in effect declaring itself bankrupt is a symptom of a wider problem caused by local government being underfunded for more than a decade.
Asked in his BBC Breakfast interview if he would bail out the Labour-run council if he were in government, Starmer replied:
I feel for the residents affected by this because they’ll be very worried about their services. I think, if you take a step back from Birmingham, you will see there are versions of this across the country. And that’s because, for 13 years, local authorities have been stripped of the funding they need. So we will have to look at that again.
But, frankly, this is a version of a question that’s now being put to me every day, which is how on earth is an incoming Labour government, if we’re privileged to come into power, going to fix the complete mess everywhere across the country. There’s this general sense that after 13 years now of this government everything is broken.
Asked again if he would bail out Birmingham, Starmer said Labour would have to look at a solution for local government across the board. Councils needed longer term funding settlements, he said.
Grant Shapps insists he will be 'fighting the corner' on MoD spending as defence secretary
When Grant Shapps was appointed defence secretary last week, there were claims that one reason why he got the job was because he was unlikely to antagonise No 10 with constant demands for higher defence spending. His predecessor Ben Wallace regularly featured in newspaper stories saying he was willing to resign if the Ministry of Defence didn’t get more.
In interviews this morning, Shapps rejected claims that he would be a pushover on spending. He said that he wanted the MoD budget to go up, and that he would fight for this.
He told LBC:
I have run complex infrastructure-heavy departments in the past and I will, of course, as secretary of state, be fighting the corner.
So don’t underestimate me when it comes to defending the country or the department.
On Sky News, asked if he would take the same approach as Wallace to lobbying for higher spending, Shapps replied:
Well, I’ll do it in my own way. I’ve spoken before about my desire to see a higher defence budget, well before being in this role.
Shapps’s two immediate predecessors both had military experience. Wallace was a soldier before becoming a politician, and Penny Mordaunt has been a Royal Navy reservist. But Shapps told LBC that Wallace and Mordaunt were exceptions to the norm, and that his lack of personal experience in the armed forces would not be a problem. He explained:
Only two of the last 15 defence secretaries have come from the military. It’s actually highly unusual.
We have a civilian government and rightly we put civilians in charge of it. I think that the Ministry of Defence will benefit from having a hugely experienced secretary of state.
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Chris Bryant appointed shadow digital minister as Labour's frontbench reshuffle continues
Keir Starmer has announced another raft of shadow ministerial appointments this morning. One of the most interesting is the appointment of Chris Bryant, chair of the Commons standards committee, as shadow minister for creative industries and digital working.
Bryant was a Foreign Office minister in the last Labour government but he resigned from a frontbench role when Jeremy Corbyn was leader and has remained on the backbenches until now, despite the fact that his politics broadly align with Keir Starmer’s.
In a Guardian interview published last month, Simon Hattenstone concluded that Bryant was excluded from senior jobs because he was deemed too independent. Hattenstone wrote:
Why do you think you haven’t achieved high office? Are you too difficult? [Bryant] swallows a huge piece of trout with surprising elegance and tells me the political commentator Iain Dale regularly asks him the same question, then answers on his behalf. “His version is I’m a bloody pain.” Has he got a point? “Maybe. A bit.” In what way? “Well, I work really hard.” That doesn’t make you a pain, I say. “No, what I mean is I constantly churn stuff out. Some of my ideas fall on stony ground and some aren’t great ideas.” I think what he means is he has too many of his own ideas and isn’t a yes man.
Bryant posted this on Twitter.
I am delighted to be appointed Shadow Minister for Creative Industries and Digital working with @ThangamMP and @peterkyle
Creativity drives the UK’s potential. It creates jobs. It enlivens our imagination. We need to cherish and celebrate it and make it available to all.
I am delighted to be appointed Shadow Minister for Creative Industries and Digital working with @ThangamMP and @peterkyle
— Chris Bryant (@RhonddaBryant) September 6, 2023
Creativity drives the UK’s potential. It creates jobs. It enlivens our imagination. We need to cherish and celebrate it and make it available to all. https://t.co/gxG0b9ps1q
Bryant’s appointment means a new chair will have to be elected for the standards committee.
And here are more Labour appointments.
— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) September 6, 2023
— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) September 6, 2023
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DfE itself to blame in some cases for missing Raac survey results, says union leader
Yesterday Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, angered school leaders by saying some of them were to blame for not responding to a survey intended to find out whether their buildings were at risk from Raac. Ben Quinn has the story here.
This morning, in his interview on the Today programme, Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that Keegan’s language was “deeply unhelpful” and that in some cases the Department for Education was to blame for missing survey results.
He said that last night he had had an email from someone who runs a trust in charge of 15 schools. He went on:
She says on Monday night at 10 o’clock she received a telling off letter from Baroness Barran [an education minister] stating the trust was one of 5% that hadn’t returned the questionnaire. She says ‘We have returned the questionnaire for all 15 of those schools. We did it early in term.’ It raises questions about whether the department is keeping records.
Another person emailed me last night, ‘We have sent our questionnaire three times … and been told we haven’t.’
All of this blame game is deeply unhelpful.
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Teaching union leaders say Raac crisis shows why Tories should not have cancelled school repair programme in 2010
Yesterday Schools Week reported that at least 11 secondary schools in England where Raac has been confirmed had refurbishment plans scrapped when the Conservatives came to power. This morning the BBC has been leading on its own version of this story, saying at least 13 schools with Raac were affected by the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future programme in 2010.
According to the BBC report, the 13 schools are:
Aston Manor Academy - Birmingham
Ferryhill School - County Durham
Carmel College - Darlington
The Ellen Wilkinson School for Girls - Ealing, London
The Billericay School - Essex
The Bromfords School - Essex
The Appleton School - Essex
The Gilberd School - Essex
The Thomas Lord Audley School - Essex
Thurstable School Sports College and Sixth Form Centre - Essex
Wood Green Academy - Sandwell, West Midlands
London Oratory School - Hammersmith and Fulham, London
Holy Family Catholic School, Bradford
This morning Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, told the Today programme that people would see this as evidence that the government did not care about education.
I think the nation’s parents will think this just reinforces a sense that we have got a government that frankly doesn’t care, and hasn’t cared about education for many years.
Barton said that, although Building Schools for the Future had its fault, it was a sign of the government’s commitment to capital investment. He explained:
I actually remember visiting a school in a pretty deprived part of Suffolk, which was on the Building Schools for the Future list on the day that Michael Gove gleefully announced that the programme was being pulled.
There were all kinds of flaws with that programme: it was expensive and it was overambitious, but it was saying something important, that the nation’s schools needed to be refurbished.
What we have got today, therefore, is some of those schools’ headteachers scrambling around trying to identify bits of concrete which might look like Aero bars when they should be focusing on children learning and developing.
And Daniel Kebede, general secretary for the National Education Union, has claimed there would not be any Raac left in schools in England if Building Schools for the Future had continued. “It has in my opinion been calculated neglect,” he said.
Keir Starmer accuses Rishi Sunak of putting champagne tax cut ahead of school safety
Good morning. PMQs is one of the toughest ordeals he has to face but, as Rishi Sunak prepares his scripts for the first PMQs of the autumn, after a summer where the Tory fightback appeared to have zilch positive impact on public opinion, at least he has one consolation. He won’t have to spend time guessing what Keir Starmer is going to ask. Not only has Labour briefed on this; Starmer has even been rehearsing his line of attack on the BBC this morning.
Starmer has been visiting a school in London affected by the Raac (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) building safety crisis and, in an interview with BBC Breakfast, he accused Sunak of prioritising a tax cut for champagne drinkers ahead of funding school building repairs.
Setting out his case, Starmer said:
The BBC analysis this morning … shows that a number of schools affected today were on the list for Building Schools for the Future that in 2010 this government cut.
Then you add to that in 2021 a list of schools that needed work done was put before the prime minister when he was then chancellor, and he refused to allow the funding to go forward.
As a direct result, you’ve got pupils this morning who are not in school.
I’m here at Park View. They learned about six months ago that they had this concrete in their upper floor in the building just behind me. They lost 15 classrooms in one go. And straightaway they had to try to teach 200 children in a big hall and the others online for a whole term. Now they’ve had since then, to put in Portakabins as a temporary measure. That’s the human impact of the government’s failure on this.
Referring to PMQs, Starmer said he wanted Sunak to explain why he did not approve all the extra funding for school buildings being requested by the Department for Education.
I think the least that we’re entitled to is to know what risks were pointed out to him in 2021 when the prime minister took those decisions, and an answer for him as to why he didn’t allow that funding to go forward.
When it was put to him that the government coming into power in 2010 had to cut back on the Building Schools for the Future programme because borrowing was too high, Starmer suggested that was no longer relevant. He said:
I think that many people across the country are getting pretty weary of a government that’s now been in power for 13 years saying in answer to any question about their own failure, ‘It’s not our fault, we couldn’t have done anything.’ Are they seriously saying to the country that in 13 years they couldn’t have done anything about their failures?
Starmer also said that at the same time Sunak decide not to fund school repairs properly (in the autumn budget and spending review of 2021), he cut the tax on champagne. Starmer went on:
These are choices. [Sunak] didn’t say, ‘Well, I can’t do that in relation to champagne’. He took a choice to cut the [duty] rate in relation to champagne and not to sign off the necessary funding for school.
This is an attack line Labour was also using on social media yesterday.
This is what Rishi Sunak prioritises. pic.twitter.com/NcvNxn9JGC
— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) September 5, 2023
These comparisons are often trite because you might assume that axing a cut in champagne duty would not be enough to fund a large-scale school repair programme. And the Treasury red book for autumn 2021 shows that the alcohol duty reforms announced by Sunak (which reduced the duty on sparkling wine) only cost £20m in 2022-23. But it said in 2023-24 the cost would be £115m, and by 2026-27 the cost would be £155m. That is more comparable with the cost of fixing the Raac crisis which, as Robert Booth reports, is approaching £150m.
The red book shows that a one-year freeze in general alcohol duty announced by Sunak at the same time was going to cost more than £500m in 2022-23 – enough to fund a substantial school renovation project. But Labour would rather focus on the tax cut for champagne, because that implies Sunak, and the Tories, prioritise the rich.
As I write, Sunak is probably crafting his response. Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Keir Starmer visits a school in London with Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary.
10am: Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police commissioner, gives evidence to the London assembly’s police and crime committee.
Noon: Rishi Sunak faces Keir Starmer at PMQs.
Around 2pm: MPs start a three-hour debate on a Labour “humble address” motion which, if passed, would force the government to publish internal documents about the Department for Education’s demands for extra money for school repairs in 2020 and 2021, and the Treasury’s response.
2.15pm: Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee.
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