New Forest MPs vote to cover up dangerous school buildings

On 23rd May, 296 Conservative MPs, including both Julian Lewis and Desmond Swayne, voted against publishing detailed information regarding the condition of every school building in the country.

The Department for Education was given the data following the Condition Data Collection survey conducted between 2017 and 2019. 

After pressure from Liberal Democrat Education spokesperson Munira Wilson, the Government revealed parts of the survey data, including that:

7,158 schools in England contain at least one building component, such as a roof, door or light fittings, deemed to be “life expired and/or at serious risk of imminent failure”;

Almost nine in 10 schools have at least one building component that has a “major defect” or is “not operating as intended”.

Overall, more than 240,000 fixtures and fittings were found to be defective. 

However, the Government has still refused to confirm if schools in the New Forest have these defects and today voted to keep the information concealed despite a previous pledge to publish the data in full.

Liberal Democrat Councillor for Pennington, Jack Davies, said: 

“It is an absolute disgrace that Julian Lewis and Desmond Swayne would vote to cover up whether our school buildings are built with dangerous or ‘life-expired’ materials.

“Parents in the New Forest deserve to know whether their child is being sent to a school that is safe and fit for purpose, or to a school liable to collapse at any moment.

“New Forest Liberal Democrats believe that investing in education is investing in our future generation. Every crumbling school is a concrete sign of years of Conservative neglect of our public services. Parents, staff and pupils have all had enough of being taken for granted.”