Hundreds more schools in England could be affected by crumbling concrete, Rishi Sunak acknowledged as he faced accusations he failed to fund a programme to replace ageing classrooms.
The Prime Minister insisted that 95% of England’s schools were unaffected, leaving open the possibility that more than a thousand could still be impacted by concerns over reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac).
Downing Street said the total number was expected to be in the hundreds rather than the thousands and the vast majority of schools would not be affected.
More than a hundred schools in England were told they could not fully open just days before the start of the autumn term because of safety fears over the use of Raac.
Pupils face being taught in temporary classrooms, on different sites or even forced into pandemic-style remote lessons.
Mr Sunak said: “New information came to light relatively recently and it’s important that once it had, that the Government acted on it as swiftly as possible.
“Of course I know the timing is frustrating, but I want to give people a sense of the scale of what we are grappling with here: there are around 22,000 schools in England and the important thing to know is that we expect that 95% of those schools won’t be impacted by this.”
