Speeches by MacAlister.

“We are trying to move away from exactly what you describe, as almost spot-procuring a bespoke arrangement for a school. The SRP is designed to essentially partner with a smaller number of organisations that have a good track record, where we have confidence in the designs and where off-site prefabrication and other thi…”

“The first thing to say is that there is nothing inherently less quality about modern methods of construction and modular builds. This is actually a huge opportunity for the Government, and the Department for Education is ahead of other Government Departments in its use of modular building, in terms of speed, getting on…”

“Jon will talk you through it, but it has learned lessons from other construction projects that have failed.”

“We can write and share that with you.”

“If the Committee has any further ideas, I welcome hearing how to include aspects.”

“This is an important point, and I am very happy to follow up with specific schools or constituents who have been in touch on that, and to look into it. Jon, I don’t know if there is anything you want to mention about the SRP.”

“I will let Jon come in in a moment. We have been really keen to ramp up the school rebuilding programme in terms of the overall number of schools, taking it from 500 to 750 over the course of the 10-year programme, and to get those completed by 2034. The original plan from the previous Government was to have 50 project…”

“If it is useful to the people who provided evidence to the Committee, direct them to me and the Department on that question. It would be interesting for me to explore with Jon and the team how exactly to sequence that and allocate money in a way that helps them.”

“Jon will come in on this, but now that we have a multi-year spending review settlement, we want to give schools and responsible bodies the ability to plan ahead exactly as you described, Chair, so that they can sequence projects. I am not sure we have worked out fully yet whether that will mean we give them, as respons…”

“The need for a fund like the condition improvement fund is a symptom of not having resolved the issues about the group-level status of schools. If you have lots of small, individual, stand-alone academies or small groups, it is very hard for them to manage their estate where the sensitivity relating to what you might n…”

“First, I am very open to hearing from schools and school leaders about the future of the fund and how it is designed to work overall for schools in England and to prioritise spending. CDC2 will help us to get a more up-to-date, accurate picture of the need across the estate to inform the condition allocation. We have h…”

“First, it will not surprise anybody if I labour the point that the Government have some really tough choices across the board. In that context, at last year’s Budget and the spending review, the Government prioritised capital spending and made bold changes to the fiscal rules that have allowed us to put money into capi…”

“Before Jon jumps back in, another learning, post the RAAC crisis, is that the Government have sought to bolster the capability and capacity of responsible bodies to deliver effective estate management. One of the reflections from 2010 onwards—this applies to PFI as well, which we may come on to—is the running down of t…”

“The first thing to say is that we take it very seriously. We want to make sure that children, teachers and adults in schools are safe. Asbestos is extensive in the school estate, and the approach that the Government have taken is to follow the Health and Safety Executive’s very clear guidance on the management of asbes…”

“There is a separate process on asbestos, for schools auditing the state of asbestos. We have a very good grip on that data. Jon might want to share more in a moment, but it is not the only process for understanding the state of the estate. It is to help the Government prioritise where investment should go for maintenan…”

“We have the last round of the condition data collection, CDC1, which is now a few years old, and that is why the Department is currently doing CDC2, which should be complete next year—if I am correct—in April 2026. We have sight of that already and the categorisation that comes off the back of it. We will then be shari…”

“Very briefly, as a Minister—I do not have a reference point for this; this is my first and only experience of it—there is a fairly rapid and clear line of sight to schools where there are issues, and the Department has a grip and knows about them. In my experience over the last few weeks, when MPs have contacted me abo…”

“This question links to the learnings from the whole RAAC experience. One of the Government’s learnings is around our ability to communicate with responsible bodies, which was a major barrier for the last Government in resolving the RAAC crisis. The quality of communication and information going back and forth between t…”

“The Government recognise that this is a major challenge. We have inherited a backlog that has worsened due to not staying on top of the crucial maintenance works. For example, with RAAC, the deterioration gets worse, resulting in leaks in roofs and so on, which means that there is a cascade effect of rundown buildings …”

“I accept your point, and I accept that it has an impact on schools, which is why it is so important that we can get both, on top of the rebuilding programme, to ensure that schools that need to be wholly rebuilt are rebuilt as soon as possible and that we maintain schools before they get to that critical point, because…”