Education Secretary Gillian Keegan is continuing to do a “f*****g good job” by thinking of new and innovative solutions to school infrastructure. Keegan noted in the Commons this afternoon that she when met Portakabin-confined pupils at a local school, they “were all petitioning me to stay in the Portakabin, because they actually preferred it to the classroom.” Labour are complaining that the Tories did not “fix the roofs when the sun was shining”…
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan is coming under serious pressure from Tory MPs for her ‘over-cautious’ and “unilateral” decision to close school buildings over the RAAC concrete scandal, with Ministers now fearing she has opened a “Pandora’s box” by setting a precedent that will force other public buildings to close unnecessarily. According to Sky News’s Sam Coates, Keegan’s decision has had a ripple effect across Whitehall, with local councils, hospitals, and even military sites now facing potential closure to justify shutting schools over the bubbly concrete fiasco. Whitehall committees which had been investigating the issue for years were “informed”, although not consulted…
Keegan did at least get Number 10’s sign off, so Rishi’s fingerprints are over this too. Although the fear is the government could now be liable in the court if, for example, a courtroom or hospital building starts to crumble. Of course, plenty of these buildings were constructed well before the 2010, so it’s not as if Labour don’t have questions to answer either…