Education Minister Nick Gibb has said that Gillian Keegan’s outburst yesterday was due to her exasperation with schools being slow to act on the crumbling concrete crisis.
The Education Minister told GB News: “She was frustrated by the fact that in March 2022, we sent out questionnaires to all responsible bodies responsible for the 22,000 schools and the 64,000 school buildings. We’ve had 95% of those returned since March last year.
“We then send in surveyors, but there are 5% who have not returned them – we sent them and we’ve chased [them] several times since March 2022. We sent another letter, for a deadline of this Friday for those returns to come in, and they are now coming in as a consequence of that.”
In a discussion during Breakfast with Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster, he denied that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was “dodging” responsibility.
Mr Gibb said: “Those facts are just simply not true. We’ve been building or refurbishing 50 schools a year from the beginning when we came into office, right through our period in power…
“One of the first things that Rishi did as Chancellor was set up the school rebuilding programme, 500 schools to be built, re-built or refurbished between 2020 and 2030.
“Now, of course, we always put in bids for more. That’s what all spending departments do, but we’ve kept that 50 a year building programme right through Covid, don’t forget, and he was making difficult decisions.”
He added: “We were spending £450 billion on the furlough scheme, on protecting businesses during lockdown during Covid, we were world leaders in tackling the challenges of Covid.
“And despite all that expenditure, we’re still continuing with this big school rebuilding programme of 500 schools to be re-built or refurbished between 2020 and 2030.”
Source: GB News
