Labour says Sunak has ‘huge culpability’ for Raac school building crisis – UK politics live

Ex-Department for Education official blames prime minister for repair cuts when he was chancellor

Good morning. Although, meteorologically, it may not feel like it, in political terms summer is definitely over and, with the Commons recess over, a new Westminster season is starting. Within the next few weeks we are getting the party conferences, a king’s speech and an autumn statement. Polling day is probably coming in just over a year. If you had to identify any day as the start of the long election campaign, today would be as good a choice as any.

Rishi Sunak needs to defend his record as PM. According to polling published by Politico, “two-thirds of people think Sunak has achieved ‘only a slight amount’ or nothing at all in his premiership so far”. But this morning he is facing criticism for decisions he made as chancellor. In a remarkable interview, Jonathan Slater, a former permanent secretary at the Department for Education, told the Today programme that Sunak halved funding for school building repairs – even though the DfE had made a very strong case that schools had to be build because of the risk to life posed by weak concrete (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, or Raac).

We know 300 to 400 needed, but the actual ask in 2021 was to double the 100 to 200. I thought we’d get it but the actual decision made in 2021 was to halve down from 100 a year to 50 year.

The defining image of thirteen years of the Conservative-run education system will be children sat under steel girders to stop the roof falling in.

Rishi Sunak bears huge culpability for his role in this debacle: he doubled down on Michael Gove’s decision to axe Labour’s schools rebuilding programme and now the chickens have come home to roost – with yet more disruption to children’s education.