Revealed: 36 crumbling schools in Conservative Ministers’ seats

EMBARGO: Immediate Release

• Eight crumbling schools found in Kemi Badenoch’s seat as government accused of being “asleep at the wheel”

• Five crumbling schools in Education Ministers' backyards

• Ministers have prioritised tax cuts for big banks over crumbling classrooms in their own constituencies 

There are 36 crumbling schools in Conservative Ministers’ seats, including 13 in the constituencies of Cabinet Ministers, the Liberal Democrats have indentified.

The party said it showed that Conservative Ministers “have been asleep at the wheel while schools crumble in their own backyard.”

There are a staggering eight crumbling schools in Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch’s constituency of Saffron Walden, and another two in Foreign Secretary James Clevery’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.

The Liberal Democrats have also highlighted how Rishi Sunak handed out £1.1.bn of tax to the big banks in the very same 2021 budget in which he failed to stump up the cash needed to fix crumbling schools. The party has been consistently raising the issue of risky RAAC concrete in schools in Parliament, tabling dozens of written questions and first challenging ministers on the issue last January.

Liberal Democrat Education Spokesperson Munira Wilson MP said:

“These damning figures show that Conservative ministers have been asleep at the wheel while school buildings crumble in their own backyards.

“Ministers with schools affected should be banging on the door to Number 10 demanding to know why Rishi Sunak chose to cut taxes for the big banks over fixing their crumbling schools.

“The scale of this concrete crisis shows the Conservatives are out of ideas, out of touch and should be out of government. 

“The public is sick and tired of excuses from Conservative ministers who have sat on their hands while our public services literally collapse because of their incompetence.”

ENDS

Notes to Editor

See full list of constituencies with crumbling school buildings here.