The closure of schools at risk of collapse because they were built with defective concrete has unleashed the first political crisis of the year for the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, whom The opposition blamed this Monday for the situation for having reduced the funds to rehabilitate them when he was Minister of Economy.
The Government has indicated that 104 schools face a “critical” risk of collapses and another 52 have been repaired, although he admits that there are still hundreds of inspections to be carried out and it has not yet published an official list with the affected centers, some of which will not be able to start classes this September.
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An official Sunak spokesman said today that “more than 95%” of the 22,000 schools of England “will not be affected”, suggesting that as many as 1,100 could suffer structural damage.
The problems stem from the extensive use in public construction in the UK between the 1950s and 1990s of a type of low-density concrete known as autoclaved aerated concrete reinforced (RAAC).
This material, which is found not only in schools, but also in hospitals, administration buildings and homes, it degrades over the decades, so it can pose a risk to the structures.
“The Prime Minister has revealed what many parents feared – that the crisis is affecting more schools than they were initially led to believe,” Labor Education spokeswoman Bridget Phillipson said today.
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“The decisions that he (Sunak) directly took when he was Minister of Economy to drastically cut the number of schools that were rehabilitated have been written, black on white,” he added.
The Minister of Education, Gillian Keegan, affirmed for her part in the House of Commons that the Executive is taking a “deliberately cautious” position” in this matter and that the safety of the students is his “absolute priority”.
Keegan, however, inflamed the controversy even more when some of his phrases captured by a microphone were aired at the end of an interview in which he apparently criticized his government colleagues and assured that “everyone else has been sitting around and doing nothing” to tackle the crisis.
In a subsequent interview, the minister apologized for the “choice of language”, while a Downing Street spokesman, Sunak’s official office, limited himself to pointing out that his comments were “misguided”.
EFE
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