06 September 2023 - NationalWorld politics editor Ralph Blackburn brings you highlights from Prime Minister's Questions as he unpacks the burning topics in politics.
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00:00 Hello and welcome to PMQs Unpacked with myself, National World's Politics Editor Rafe Blackburn.
00:06 Each week we'll analyse Prime Minister's questions. So for today's PMQs, it's been seven weeks
00:12 since the last time Rishi Sunak faced Keir Starmer in the House of Commons, and he currently
00:17 has the lowest attendance of any Prime Minister in recent history to PMQs, with his deputies
00:23 Dominic Raab and Oliver Dowden filling in more than often. The build up to today's Prime
00:29 Minister's questions were dominated by the RAC concrete scandal, which has seen 104 schools
00:35 in England either fully or partially closed as they've been built with RAC, which is aerated
00:41 concrete. It's effectively breeze blocks, so there's concern that roofs can fall in,
00:46 which has happened in schools a few times over the last few years. There's been warnings
00:51 for the government since 2018, and the blame has even turned on the Prime Minister himself
00:57 for cutting school rebuilding budgets while he was the Chancellor, and unsurprisingly,
01:03 Sir Keir Starmer brought this up first.
01:06 And through me. Mr Speaker, the roof of Singlewell Primary School in Gravesend collapsed in May
01:14 2018. Thankfully it happened at the weekend and no children were injured. The concrete
01:20 ceiling was deemed dangerous and liable to collapse, and everyone knew the problem existed
01:25 in other schools. Yet the Prime Minister decided to halve the budget for school maintenance
01:32 just a couple of years later. Does he agree with his education secretary that he should
01:38 be thanked for doing a good job?
01:46 Now this crisis is obviously a huge issue for a government which is already struggling
01:51 with popularity, 15 to 20 points behind in the polls. And the last thing they need is
01:58 something like this, which affects parents and children all across the country. And it
02:04 basically gives off the impression that the country is almost literally falling apart.
02:10 While issues have been known about this aerated concrete since the 1990s, so all the blame
02:17 can't really be put at the door of this government. The problem for Ishii Tsunak is he's been
02:23 directly implicated. When he was Chancellor, he was in charge of, you know, budgets for
02:30 the whole of the government, including education. And the former permanent secretary for the
02:36 Department for Education, my senior civil servant at the DfE, basically told the BBC
02:42 earlier in the week that 400 schools need to be rebuilt every year to kind of get on
02:48 top of this issue. And that was what the DfE was asking for a number of years. When it
02:54 came to 2021, when Tsunak was Chancellor, they asked for 200 schools to be rebuilt every
03:01 year. But in the end, Ishii Tsunak only ended up granting them the money for 50 schools.
03:08 Now, it has to be said that this was during COVID. And so there were a lot of other priorities
03:16 going on. However, the problem is, you know, if you cut these big capital projects, then
03:23 these kind of issues can happen. At the end of that clip, Keir Starmer also made reference
03:28 to comments that Julianne Keegan, the Education Secretary, made this week, when she basically
03:35 said, you know, everyone else was sat on their arses while she was fixing the job, albeit
03:42 part of that was from her holiday in Spain. And she also asked why no one was saying she'd
03:46 done an effing good job. So a lot of issues here for Starmer. Sorry, a lot of issues here
03:54 for Tsunak. However, you know, according to him, school funding is still very high.
04:00 >>Keir Starmer The professional advice from the technical
04:05 experts on RAD has evolved over time. And indeed, it is something that successive governments
04:13 have dealt with, dating back to 1994, Mr Speaker. Now, as new advice has come forward, the government
04:20 has rightly, decisively and swiftly acted in the face of that advice. But he talked
04:26 about school budgets and talked about what I had done. But let me just walk him through
04:30 the facts of actually what that spending review did, because he brought it up. Well, no, he's
04:35 brought it up, so presumably he would like to hear the facts. Funding for school maintenance
04:40 and rebuilding will average £2.6 billion a year over this Parliament as a result of
04:46 that spending review, which represents a 20% increase on the years before. Indeed, Mr Speaker,
04:54 far from cutting budgets, as he alleges, the amount spent last year was the highest in
04:59 a decade. That spending review maintained the school rebuilding programme, delivering
05:12 500 schools over a decade, at a pace completely consistent with what had happened previously.
05:19 And Mr Speaker, it is worth pointing out that during the parliamentary debates on that spending
05:23 review, the Labour Party and him did not raise the issue of RAC one single time. So before
05:33 he jumps on the next political bandwagon, he should get his facts straight.
05:41 So here we have Rashid Suleiman defending him and his government's record. He says £2.6
05:47 billion have been put towards school maintenance, which is the highest amount in a decade, and
05:54 also 500 schools to be rebuilt over 10 years. The problem is that while these numbers sound
06:01 great, the reality is somewhat different. And you know, while there might be £2.6 billion
06:08 going towards school maintenance, it's still the case that, you know, the government had
06:12 to partially or fully close over 100 schools right at the start of term. And parents whose
06:18 kids haven't been able to go to school probably won't be that bothered, whether it's a record
06:22 or not. They'll just want to be able to get their kid to school and get back to proper
06:26 learning after COVID. The 500 schools being rebuilt over 10 years, again, sounds good,
06:34 but that is 50 schools a year, when the DfE originally asked for 400 schools to be rebuilt
06:39 a year, and then later 200. So still, you know, well below what the Department for Education
06:45 was asking. And he says that the funding is the highest in a decade, whereas, you know,
06:50 that's compared to the austerity period under David Cameron and George Osborne, where public
06:56 spending was massively cut back. And that saw Labour's schools rebuilding programme
07:02 axed, which was something Keir Starmer brought up at Prime Minister's questions time and
07:07 time again.
07:08 Well, Mr Speaker, they want more, so let me continue. Ferry Hill School in County Durham
07:14 was on Labour's building list in 2010. They scrapped it, and now children there are in
07:19 a crumbling school. The truth is, this crisis is the inevitable result of 13 years of cutting
07:27 corners, botched jobs, sticking plaster politics. It's the sort of thing you expect from cowboy
07:34 builders, saying that everyone else is wrong, everyone else is to blame, protesting they've
07:39 done an effing good job, even if the ceiling falls in. The difference, Mr Speaker, is that
07:45 in this case, the cowboys are running the country. Isn't he ashamed that after 13 years
07:54 of Tory government, children are cowering under steel supports, stopping their classroom
08:00 roof falling in?
08:01 So, in five of Keir Starmer's six questions he gets to ask the Prime Minister, he mentioned
08:10 a different school, which is currently fully or partially closed due to rack issues, which
08:15 would have rebuilt under new Labour's rebuilding schools programme. In total, Labour says 19
08:23 schools which are on that list would have been rebuilt and would need to be closed at
08:27 the moment. However, like I've said, that was axed under the coalition government, something
08:32 which Michael Gove says he now regrets. Now, each Prime Minister's questions, both Rishi
08:39 Singh, the Prime Minister, and the Leader of the Opposition, Sir Keir Starmer, they
08:43 want to try and get a short clip which makes it onto the bulletins so it gets watched or
08:48 listened to by as many people as possible. And I think that is exactly what Keir Starmer
08:53 was trying to do with his cowboys running the country line. Right, let's listen to Rishi
09:00 Singh's final response, where again he tries to defend his record.
09:05 >>Keir Starmer Mr Speaker, I know he comes here with his
09:10 prepared scripts, but he hasn't listened to a single fact, a single fact of six questions
09:17 about the record amounts of funding going into schools, about the incredible reforms
09:22 to education impacting the most disadvantaged children in our society, a record that we
09:27 are rightly proud of. And yes, of course we can name the schools. That's because we
09:32 are reacting to information and publishing that information, Mr Speaker, so we know where
09:37 the issues are, something that we're still waiting for by the Welsh Government in Wales.
09:41 But Mr Speaker, of course he wants to try and score political points on something that
09:46 we are dealing with in the right and responsible way. But I do note that he has not mentioned
09:51 a single other thing that has happened since we last met across these dispatch boxes, Mr
09:55 Speaker. He talked about hard-working families across Britain, but what's happened? Energy
10:01 bills? Down, Mr Speaker. What's happened to inflation? Down, Mr Speaker. What's happened
10:07 to small boat crossings? Down, Mr Speaker. And when it comes, Mr Speaker, and when it
10:13 comes to economic growth, what's happened? It's gone up, Mr Speaker. He tried, he tried
10:21 time and time again to talk down the British economy, but people weren't listening, thankfully.
10:28 His entire economic narrative has been demolished and the Conservatives are getting on delivering
10:34 for Britain.
10:39 So there we are once again, Rishi Sunak defending him and his government's record on not just
10:44 education, but the economy as well. He said record funding has gone into schools. There's
10:50 been incredible reforms to education. He said inflation is down, which is true. He said
10:56 energy bills are down, which is also true, albeit very slightly. And he said growth is
11:01 up, which it is just about. But the problem again for the Prime Minister is, even though
11:09 he lists off all those, I guess you could call them achievements, people don't really
11:14 feel like they're getting better off at the moment. I certainly don't. And most of the
11:19 public doesn't either. Just in July, 76% of people responded to an Ipsos survey saying
11:27 they think Britain is becoming a worse place to live. Rishi Sunak is the richest ever Prime
11:32 Minister. He travels by helicopter or private jet most of the time. He's got houses in Kensington,
11:37 California. And this kind of stuff just makes him look a little bit out of touch. And yeah,
11:46 most general actions are fought on the economy. And this one is likely to be no different.
11:51 And if people don't start feeling better off soon, then you know, Rishi Sunak's time as
11:57 Prime Minister could start to crumble, just like that's potentially happening in some
12:01 of our schools. Thanks very much for watching. My name is Red Blackburn. I'm the politics
12:07 editor of National World. You can find the rest of our politics coverage at nationalworld.com
12:12 and also sign up to the weekly Westminster Explained newsletter which comes out every
12:17 Sunday on the website as well.
12:18 Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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