Rishi Sunak is urged to a get a grip as Gillian Keegan’s TV blunder exposes Tory chaos in response to the concrete crisis that has forced more than 100 schools to close days before the new year
- Gillian Keegan was forced to apologise after a foul-mouthed rant over the crisis
Rishi Sunak was tonight being urged to get a grip as the school concrete crisis descended into farce.
The warning from Tory MPs came after Education Secretary Gillian Keegan was forced to apologise for a foul-mouthed rant over who was to blame. In an embarrassing blunder on the first day back from parliament’s summer recess, Mrs Keegan was caught on camera insisting that she had done a ‘f****** good job’ while others ‘sat on their a**e’.
Yet it emerged that she was on holiday in Spain last week while the crisis unfolded. Days before the start of the autumn term more than a hundred schools in England were told they could not fully open because of safety fears over crumbling concrete.
It meant scores of pupils began the school year yesterday by learning online in an echo of the huge disruption caused by the pandemic.
Teachers spent the weekend scrambling to erect tented classrooms and acquiring festival-style toilets in a bid to keep classrooms open. The last-minute closures left parents racing to find emergency childcare as they juggled remote learning with full-time work.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan (pictured) was forced to apologise for a foul-mouthed rant over who was to blame for the concrete crisis
Rishi Sunak (pictured) was tonight being urged to get a grip as the school concrete crisis descended into farce
Ms Keegan came under fire for failing to appear on the airwaves over the weekend to address the issue, and instead released a bizarre video with a dance music soundtrack. In a round of broadcast interviews yesterday, she admitted hundreds of schools could be affected by crumbling reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC).
But then in an extraordinary outburst, filmed as a TV camera repositioned for extra shots, she said: ‘Does anyone ever say, you know what, you’ve done a f****** good job because everyone else has sat on their a**e and done nothing? No signs of that, no?’
She said ITV journalist Daniel Hewitt, who conducted the interview, had been ‘pressing me quite hard’ and claimed he was ‘making out it was all my fault’.
In her apology, the Education Secretary refused to say who she believed had ‘sat on their a**e’. She added: ‘It was an off-the-cuff remark after the news interview had finished, or apparently after it had finished.
‘I would like to apologise for my choice language.’
In other developments on a chaotic day in Westminster:
- Mr Sunak insisted that 95 per cent of England’s schools were unaffected – leaving open the possibility that more than a thousand could still be hit by the crisis;
- Labour’s Keir Starmer said ministers appeared to be trying to ‘pass the buck’ for the closures and said the situation was descending into farce;
- Union leaders wrote to Mrs Keegan demanding urgent answers on the RAAC ’emergency’ – including clarity over the funding and support for schools;
- The Labour-run Welsh Government said two schools on Anglesey that had been due to open for the autumn term today would be closed temporarily;
- The Scottish Government confirmed that RAAC had been discovered in 35 schools with local authorities in the process of checking other buildings;
- The Ministry of Justice is inspecting buildings built in the 1990s for RAAC after Harrow Crown Court was found to contain the material;
- The PM is facing yet another by-election after former Tory chief whip Chris Pincher lost an appeal against a lengthy Commons suspension over groping allegations.
Mr Sunak was dragged into the concrete crisis yesterday after a former top civil servant claimed the PM had failed to fully fund a programme to rebuild schools.
Jonathan Slater, ex-permanent secretary at the Department for Education, blamed the Prime Minister for halving the rebuilding budget while he was chancellor in 2021.
Rishi Sunak hosts a cross government briefing on RAAC in the cabinet room in 10 Downing Street
Mr Sunak insisted that 95 per cent of England’s schools were unaffected – leaving open the possibility that more than a thousand could still be hit by the crisis;
n an embarrassing blunder on the first day back from parliament’s summer recess, Mrs Keegan was caught on camera insisting that she had done a ‘f****** good job’ while others ‘sat on their a**e’
Mr Sunak rubbished the claim, insisting: ‘Actually one of the first things I did as chancellor, in my first spending review in 2020, was to announce a new ten-year school rebuilding programme for 500 schools. Now that equates to about 50 schools a year that will be refurbished or rebuilt. If you look at what we have been doing over the previous decade, that’s completely in line with what we have always done.’
The row follows a lacklustre summer which has riled many Tory MPs who fear the PM is not doing enough to win the next election.
READ MORE: No10 sends Education Secretary Gillian Keegan out to apologise for hot mic rant where she accused everyone of ‘sitting on their a***’ over concrete chaos only to blame the SCHOOLS for slow response – as aides reveal she was in Spain when crisis erupted
They have grown frustrated by stubbornly poor poll ratings and misfiring campaigning events such as ‘small boats week’ – a plan to hail progress in tackling Channel crossings that soon unravelled.
A senior backbencher said: ‘The Government is spending all its time addressing problems and cock-ups from the past – that’s all the media we’re getting. It’s time to get on to the front foot and have a positive message, otherwise the floating voter will start firming up for Labour.’
Another ex-minister said that Mr Sunak was ‘showing he can’t cope and is not up to the job sadly’.
No 10 said Mr Sunak yesterday held a cross-government meeting with key departments affected by the concrete crisis – including education, health and justice. He is said to have made clear that parents should be given clarity and reassurance.
Ministers have also promised that a list of schools confirmed to have RAAC in their buildings will be published this week. The material was used for many public buildings between the 1950s and the mid-1990s and is prone to failure.
The collapse of Singlewell primary school in Gravesend, Kent, in 2018 sparked concerns over the concrete, which was dubbed ‘Aero-like’ by structural engineers.
But it was the collapse of a beam at a school once deemed to be safe during the summer that spurred action.
A Department for Education spokesman said: ‘The Education Secretary took the cautious and proactive decision to change guidance on Raac and this week has chaired daily operational calls with ministers and senior officials in the department and virtually.’
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