Lets start with the story thats dominated the uk Political Agenda for the last few days. Rishi sunak says its Utterly Wrong to blame him forfailing to tackle the issue of unsafe concrete in school buldings. As thousands of children return to classrooms today after the summer break, its emerged that more than a hundred schools in england and scotland will be closed or partially shut. Its over Safety Concerns about what is known as raac a type of concrete, thats known to be at risk of crumbling. Our Political Editor chris mason reports on a busy first day back for mps. You probably hadnt heard of it until the other day, but this stuff concrete that can get crumbly is building into a political mess. Did rishi sunak, when he was chancellor, walk away from repairs happening sooner . The man who used to be the Department For Educations most senior Civil Servant reckons he did. I was absolutely amazed to see that the decision made by the government was to halve the School Rebuilding programme
The man who used to be the Department For Educations most senior Civil Servant reckons he did. I was absolutely amazed to see that the decision made by the government was to halve the School Rebuilding programme down from 100 a year to 50 a year. The chancellor, of course, was at the time . Rishi sunak. So, what does the Prime Minister make of that . I think that is completely and utterly wrong. 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. And if you look at what weve been doing over the previous decade, thats completely in line with what weve always done. This Secondary School in County Durham was meant to open for the new term tomorrow, but it cant because of dangerous concrete. In both 2020 and 2021, the government promised 50 schools a year would be rebuilt. In 2019, the National Au
A type of concrete, thats known to be at risk of crumbling. Meanwhile, in the last couple of hours another twist with the Education Secretary caught on camera voicing herfrustrations about the media coverage. This is Gillian Keegan after an interview with itv news. Does anyone ever say, you have done a good job cos everyone else has sat on thei and done nothing . No signs of that, no . The footage was captured by itv news as the Camera Repositioned for extra shots at the end of an interview with the minister, while she was still wearing her microphone. Gillian keegan has apologised for those remarks. Gillian keegan, you said everyone else had sat on their backsides which suggests you think people had been pulling their weight, who are you talking about . It was nobody in particular, 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 there. That was unnecessary. But it was an off the c
and northern areas, most places dry overnight. patchy cloud with mist and fog patches developing in most places, we will see clear skies. chilly out of town but towns and cities are seen temperatures between 3-5 cities are seen temperatures between 3 5 celsius. a fine start to wednesday with mist and fog patches melting away quite quickly then a dry, sunny afternoon for most. a little bit of local outlets mist hugging the coast of scotland and north east england, with the odd shower for north east scotland and down into eastern england but most places will be dry with another warm day, into the high teens for most with the low 20s in the warmest spots in the midlands and the south east. as we to wednesday night, largely dry again. widespread clear skies. night, largely dry again. widespread clearskies. more night, largely dry again. widespread clear skies. more cloud pushing into the north west of scotland and northern ireland, here, temperatures not falling as low as further south bec