Schools concrete crisis: Starmer attacks Sunak’s Tory ‘cowboys’ as full list of closures revealed

Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, is facing criticism after her sweary outburst over the school concrete crisis was caught by a hot mic on Monday 4 September.

In a moment of frustration, she hit out at those who she argued had “sat on their arse and done nothing” and questioned why no one was saying “You’ve done a f****** good job”.

While her outburst piles pressure on Rishi Sunak and the government, Ms Keegan wasn’t the first politician to be caught out by a live microphone - and she certainly won’t be the last.

Here, The Independent takes a look at some of the most famous hot-mic moments from years gone by.

One former minister said the crumbly concrete crisis had been “terribly handled” by Ms Keegan and her schools minister Nick Gibb.

They said that Raac was a “long-standing issue that should be being dealt with locally - they’ve turned it into a national crisis”.

They added “but I expect she will survive”, accusing Mr Sunak of being unable to carry out even a minor reshuffle after last week’s long awaited re-jig of his top team saw just one cabinet minister moved.

Rishi Sunak was under fresh pressure over his role in the concrete crisis after a minister said the former chancellor approved funding for the rebuilding of 50 schools yearly, despite a bid for 200.

Schools minister Nick Gibb suggested on Tuesday that the prime minister, when chancellor in 2021, had gone with other priorities over a request to increase funding to fix England’s schools.

The Department for Education (DfE) conceded that just four schools have been rebuilt so far under the programme to overhaul 500 sites by 2030 that Mr Sunak has used in his defence in recent days.

Mr Gibb insisted the government’s response to the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) that is causing more than 100 schools to partially or fully shut is “world-leading”.

The prime minister has been accused of refusing to fully fund a programme to rebuild England’s crumbling schools when he was chancellor by former DfE permanent secretary Jonathan Slater.

The ex-civil servant said that up to 400 schools a year needed to be replaced but that funding was given for 100 after Mr Sunak took the decision to “halve the size of the programme”.

However, Mr Sunak told reporters the attack on his record was “completely and utterly wrong”.

Mr Gibb said he did not recognise the 400 figure but admitted that the DfE asked for funding to overhaul 200 schools a year in 2021 only for Mr Sunak to agree funding for just 50 a year.

“We put in a bid for 200, but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme with 50 a year, consistent with what we’d been doing since we came into office,” the minister told Sky News.

“Of course we put in a bid for 200, but of course the Treasury then has to compare that with all the other priorities from right across Whitehall, from the health service, defence, and so on.”

Gillian Keegan insisted the government and her predecessors have done an “excellent job” in responding to the aerated concrete crisis.

Quizzed on whether she meant previous education secretaries when she criticised those who had “sat on their arse and done nothing,” the current role holder told Jeremy Vine: “Not at all. I think my predecessors did do a great job.

“The Department for Education I feel has done a really good job. And yet we’ve been put in this situation.

“I don’t mind personally and I’m a grown up, I will get criticised. You know, once you’re a politician, that’s just life, right?

“But I do think the department has done an excellent job. I think the responsible bodies who responded to the survey - 95% of them have gone round, they’ve looked at Raac, they’ve responded. They’ve done a brilliant job.

“The proppers, the building companies, they’ve all worked so hard, the caseworkers, the call centres. And I honestly feel that we’ve stood all that up and very quickly, and I honestly feel they’ve done a really, really good job and no-one has said it. So that’s who I meant.”

School chiefs who have not responded to a survey should “get off their backsides” and inform the government whether they are affected by crumbling concrete, Gillian Keegan has said.

The education secretary, who railed against those who had “sat on their arse and done nothing” in a sweary outburst a day earlier, told Jeremy Vine on BBC Radio 2 on Tuesday: “The annoying bit and this was probably a bit of my frustration yesterday, is despite asking since March 2020, there’s 5% of schools or responsible bodies that have not responded to the survey.

“Now hopefully all this publicity will make them get off their backsides.

“But what I would like them to do is to respond because I want to be the Secretary of State that knows exactly in every school where there is Raac and takes action.”

She added: “We’ve written to them quite a few times and we’ve also set up a call centre to phone them up to ask them to do it and they still haven’t. So we have written to them yesterday and given them ‘til the end of the week.”

Not every building with Raac will be torn down, Gillian Keegan has said.

It was put to the education secretary that reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) with a 30-year lifespan is starting to collapse after 60 years.

She told Jeremy Vine: “Yes but you have to manage it, right? We’re not going to tear every building down that has Raac in it. You have to manage it.”

She noted that Raac “actually had a 50-year lease and then they changed it to 30”.

She put her sweary outburst the day before down to frustration that the interviewer “was trying to pin everything on me, you know, ‘why haven’t you done this, why haven’t you done that, why haven’t you done the other?’ And actually Raac has been around for a long time, since the 1950s to 1994.”

Gillian Keegan sought to defend Rishi Sunak’s decision-making as chancellor amid a row over his role in the concrete crisis.

The education secretary was asked whether she meant Mr Sunak when she criticised those who had “sat on their arse and done nothing”, as he had been accused by former Department for Education permanent secretary Jonathan Slater of having declined a request for funding to rebuild more schools.

She told Jeremy Vine on BBC Radio 2 on Tuesday: “Absolutely not. The prime minister when he was chancellor announced the school rebuilding programme in 2020 to rebuild 500 schools. So I don’t know what Jonathan’s talking about...

“What they do the Treasury, I mean first of all people always put in bids which are high, and what they do is they look in the round and they look at your track record.”

She added: “What I will say is our schools are really well funded. Rishi cares massively about education, and I care massively about education.”

As an emblem of a government so out of touch that it looks for gratitude for presiding over 13 years of underinvestment that has left us with crumbling schools, we can do no better than Gillian Keegan’s “hot mic” moment, when she asked an ITV News correspondent:

“Does anyone ever say, ‘You know you’ve done a f****** good job because everyone else has sat on their arses and done nothing’. No signs of that, no?”

She has been slapped down by No 10 and made to apologise for her “choice language”, but it wasn’t how she said it but what she said that was so revealing – the apparent offensive sense of entitlement it suddenly illuminated, and in such stark contrast to the ritualistic expressions of concern for pupils and teachers.

The hot mic meltdown revealed the education secretary’s own stunning dereliction of duty – and an offensive sense of entitlement by a pound-store Marie Antoinette, writes Sean O’Grady:

One senior Tory, an ex-minister, told The Independent that Ms Keegan was guilty of “amateur slip-ups” when speaking to the media – and warned her job was “in danger” if the government failed to get a grip of the Raac crisis.

Another former minister told The Independent that the crumbly concrete crisis had been “terribly handled” by Ms Keegan and her schools minister Nick Gibb. They said that Raac was a “long-standing issue that should be being dealt with locally - they’ve turned it into a national crisis”.

They added “but I expect she will survive”, accusing Mr Sunak of being unable to carry out even a minor reshuffle after last week’s long awaited re-jig of his top team saw just one cabinet minister moved.

Laying any responsibility for the concrete crisis at the door of schools is “outrageous”, the leader of a teaching union has suggested.

Education secretary Gillian Keegan said school chiefs who have not responded to a survey about collapse-prone reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) should “get off their backsides” and inform the Government.

Addressing the comments, Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said: “It is outrageous of the education secretary to lay any responsibility for the Raac crisis at the door of schools.

“The fact is that the Department for Education has dragged its heels over many years on this issue.”

He added: “The government has failed to show leadership on this issue for very many years.”