Labour accuses Gove of starting ‘neglect’ of schools that led to collapsing building crisis

Labour has accused Michael Gove of starting the “neglect” of schools that led to collapsing concrete crisis.

Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson slammed Mr Gove’s decision to scrap the last Labour government’s school building programme, saying it was “the death knell of ambition for our children”.

The move was “the first sign of the neglect that was to come”, she writes in an article for the Independent in which she also accuses ministers of having “no strategy” to ensure school sites are “up to scratch”.

More than 100 schools in England have been told to immediately close classrooms and buildings over safety fears.

That number could grow as ministers hurriedly assess schools across the country for a type of concrete described as “80 per cent air” and which has been compared to an Aero chocolate bar.

The news has plunged the annual back to school rush into chaos for many and means thousands of pupils could start the new school term learning online or in temporary accommodation.

In the piece, Ms Phillipson said Conservative “incompetence” was “keeping children at home again”.

Two years after primary school children were back in the classroom for just one day before being sent home again in January 2021, Ms Phillipson said parents would “understandably have a sense of déjà vu”.

She accused ministers of “telling parents and children just to sit tight and wonder if their school is affected” with their refusal to publish a full list of the sites involved.

As pressure mounts on the education secretary to explain how the urgent order to close classrooms was given just days before the start of the new school year, Mr Phillipson writes that “alarm bells” should have been ringing years ago.

“Ministers have known about these risks for years but have done nothing. In 2018, the roof of Singlewell Primary School in Kent collapsed suddenly and without notice due to the same bubbly, crumbly concrete that is now closing schools today. Fortunately, that accident happened at a weekend, but it should have been a warning signal, an alarm bell that prompted action.”

She adds: “In recent days, Conservative Ministers have filled-up column inches to urge parents to send children back to school, but now they are the reason that more children will be spending more time at home.

Labour’s Building Schools for the Future scheme was controversially scrapped by the then education secretary Mr Gove in July 2010.

At the time he told parliament the programme had been characterised by "massive overspends, tragic delays, botched construction projects and needless bureaucracy".

The move led to hundreds of school building projects being scrapped.

But the government insists it has invested billions of pounds since then in school buildings.