Pupils across England are being taught in church and village halls, temporary classrooms and remotely at home, as crumbling school buildings are ordered to shut because of to safety concerns, an investigation has revealed.

Sally Weale www.theguardian.com 

In some cases, where an entire school has been forced to close, hundreds of pupils are split across neighbouring schools to take their lessons, while others are sent home to resume online learning, as they did during the pandemic.

After the immediate crisis of finding alternative accommodation, pupils and teachers can find themselves in temporary classrooms for months, if not years, while school and local authorities try to come up with a long-term solution.

The findings reveal the disruptive impact that school closures because of unsafe buildings have on pupils, whose education has already been interrupted by Covid. They also come just days after a highly critical report by the public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, said an estimated 700,000 children are being taught in unsafe or ageing school buildings that needed major repairs.

It also revealed that more than a third of school buildings were past their estimated design lifespan, and specialists were carrying out urgent checks on almost 600 schools at possible risk of structural collapse because of crumbling concrete, with many more schools unaware of the danger lurking in their buildings.

Ministers admitted earlier this year that 39 schools had partly or fully closed since 2019 owing to unsafe buildings, including structural and general condition problems, such as roofing and boiler failures.

A freedom of information request by the Liberal Democrats has now revealed the location – though not identity – of each school, and how pupils have been affected. They say the true number of affected schools may be far higher, as schools are not obliged to report building-related closures to the Department for Education (DfE).

In one school in Hertfordshire, which had to close its entire site permanently in February 2022, all pupils were sent home to study remotely for three weeks. Face-to-face lessons resumed in a church hall for some children while others went to neighbouring schools, a situation that continued for three months, after which pupils were moved into temporary classrooms while waiting for a long-term solution.

In another case, an Essex school, which the Liberal Democrats have matched to local reports of King Edmund School in Rochford, closed in November 2022 after traces of asbestos were found in the rubble of a demolished building. Pupils were sent home to learn online for two months while the site was made safe.

And a school in Sunderland, identified in local reports as Burnside Academy in Houghton-le-Spring, closed in March 2021 because of pumping and drainage issues. Pupils were bussed to neighbouring schools for almost eight months, then returned to lessons in temporary classrooms until the school reopened earlier this month.

In other examples, two mobile classroom blocks at a school in North Somerset were declared unsafe within nine months of each other, while pupils at one Devon school took classes in the local village hall for a week and a half after their school was forced to close temporarily in June 2022.

The Liberal Democrat education spokesperson, Munira Wilson, called on ministers to clear the backlog of repairs so parents could be certain their child’s school was safe. “Each shut school is a concrete sign of years of Conservative neglect of our school buildings.

“Conservative ministers should apologise for the months of disruption that thousands of pupils have had to their learning. Whilst successive Conservative prime ministers cut capital spending on education, pupils have been forced to study at home, in church halls or were bussed miles to other schools.”

The DfE has been contacted for comment but previously said: “We are investing in 500 projects for new and refurbished school buildings through our school rebuilding programme. On top of this, we have allocated over £1bn since 2015 for keeping schools safe and operational, including £1.8bn committed for 2023-24.”

Water company bosses’ bonuses will no longer be funded by household bills when a firm has failed on environmental and customer performance, the regulator has confirmed.

Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. – Owl

Adam Vaughan www.thetimes.co.uk

The move by Ofwat comes after half the chief executives at wastewater firms in England waived their bonuses over sewage pollution, including Sarah Bentley, the boss of crisis-hit Thames Water until her unexpected resignation this week.

The body responsible for the economic regulation of the privatised water and sewerage industry first mooted in March the idea of ensuring leaders of poorly performing companies are only paid bonuses by eating into water sector profits and dividends.

After receiving more than 25,000 to its consultation, the biggest engagement yet, it has confirmed the new rules will be enacted.

“Customer trust is damaged when executive bonuses are not aligned to water company performance,” said David Black, Ofwat’s chief executive. “We are pleased that a number of companies and chief executives have already responded to our concerns with respect to last year.”

Black said that in future executive directors’ bonuses would be reviewed and, where expectations were not met, the new powers would be used to protect customers. Remuneration committees that award bonuses to water bosses will now have to take full account of performance for customers and the environment.

The scorecard on water firms’ environmental performance last year will not be published until the middle of next month. However, Alan Lovell, chairman of the Environment Agency, has told The Times it will show that their 2022 record was “simply not good enough”.

Among the water bosses yet to have given up their bonuses is Louise Beardmore, who received a £727,000 bonus as chief executive of United Utilities, the worst company in England for sewage spills last year. Others include Severn Trent’s Liv Garfield, whose previous bonus was £597,000; Anglian Water’s Peter Simpson (£337,651); Wessex Water’s Colin Skellett (£189,500); and Northumbrian Water’s Heidi Mottram (£130,000).

The move by Ofwat comes as campaigners protested outside a water sector awards event in Birmingham on Thursday. The government has this week been preparing for a potential temporary nationalisation of Thames Water, which is struggling under £14 billion of debt.

Surfers Against Sewage campaigners put on sewer rat costumes and held a cheque showing the £1.4 billion in dividends paid out by water companies last year, as they protested outside the Water Industry Awards 2023.

“The greed of water company executives comes at a terrible cost to the health of both the environment and people. They swim in cash while we’re swimming in sewage,” said Izzy Ross, campaigns manager at the group.

Simon Jupp is making no secret of his visits outside the bounds of his constituency. No doubt these visits are to gain “name recognition” having opted to abandon Exmouth to be the conservative candidate in the new Honiton and Sidmouth constituency. 

There is a convention, almost universally observed on all sides of the House of Commons, that Members deal with personal inquiries only from their own constituents.

By convention Members intending to visit another constituency, other than on a purely private or personal matter, should inform the relevant Member. Guidance has been given from the Chair and has been set out in Rules of behaviour and courtesies in the House of Commons, issued by the Speaker and Deputy Speakers.

The need for these extra-mural visits looks unconvincing. Jupp is a PPS in transport.

But as we all know rules and conventions are not something that seem to bother modern conservatives.

Here are some recent visit examples:  

June 9 Simon Jupp MP on Twitter:

“I had a really valuable opportunity to discuss the future of pharmacies with constituent Ian Morton who owns Morton’s Pharmacy in #Axminster today. I will continue to work with local pharmacies as they are offered additional government funding to help free up GP appointments.”

Yesterday, 30 June he tweeted:

“We all hate dodgy Wi-Fi! Fast & reliable internet is vital for everyday life & local businesses. I met with @Wildanet in #Axminster to discuss their roll-out of full-fibre broadband in the town. I’m working with them to put forward #EastDevon areas without proper broadband. 

Does someone need to raise a red card?

So says Zac Goldsmith in his ministerial resignation letter (Minister of State for energy, environment and climate).

Tory Toff Zac Goldsmith is a supporter of Boris Johnson who recently handed him a peerage (Baron of Richmond Park). He was the serving minister identified by the privileges committee as one of those, alongside Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nadine Dorries, undermining the procedures of the House of Commons.

Goldsmith’s resignation and withering criticism comes, some say, instead of an apology.

Goldsmith says he was happy to apologise but his resignation has been a long time coming for the reasons he has given.

Is the Prime Minister and, by association, the Government guilty as charged ?

The evidence looks convincing to Owl.

Here is an extract of what Goldsmith has to say (full indictment below): 

…“Only last week you seemingly chose to attend the party of a media baron rather than attend a critically important environment summit in Paris that ordinarily the UK would have co-led.

Worse still, we have effectively abandoned one of the most widely reported and solemn promises we have made on this issue: our pledge to spend £11.6bn of our aid on climate and environment.”…

And here is what another Lord had to say this week::

Lord Deben [John Gummer, former Secretary of State for Environment], the outgoing chair of the CCC [Climate Change Committee], said the UK had “lost the leadership” on climate action shown at Cop26 in 2021 and done “a number of things” – such as greenlighting a new coal mine and new oil and gasfields in the North Sea – that were “utterly unacceptable”.

He said the committee’s confidence that the government would meet its shorter-term carbon-cutting goals by 2030 was even lower than last year, despite the publication of a new green strategy by ministers. “We’ve slipped behind, and other people have moved ahead,” he said. “This is not a report that suggests satisfactory progress.”

Greenhouse gas emissions have been falling by just under 3% a year, but this will need to double over the next eight years.

The committee warned that the UK could no longer expand any of its airports without closures or shrinking of capacity elsewhere but the government seems not to have accepted this.

Public charging for electric vehicles is more costly than it need be, and the government is expecting transport emissions to be higher than was previously admitted, according to the CCC’s latest annual report, published on Wednesday, entitled Progress in Reducing UK Emissions: 2023 Report to Parliament.

The report also found:

• The number of homes receiving energy efficiency improvements under the government’s Energy Company Obligation scheme more than halved, from 383,700 in 2021 to 159,600 in 2022, according to the report. At least 1m to 2m homes should be upgraded each year to meet net zero.
• Homes are still being built that will need to be retrofitted with low-carbon heating and efficiency measures, because the government has not yet brought in its promised future homes standard.
• No decision on whether to use hydrogen for home heating will be made until 2026, leaving households and boiler companies in limbo.
• Emissions from transport have remained stubbornly high as the government has “made a political choice” to allow an increase in road traffic, instead of encouraging people on to public transport.
• There is no coherent programme to encourage people to change their high-carbon lifestyles.
• There is no clear policy to decarbonise steel production, or emissions from other heavy industries.

Zac Goldsmith’s resignation letter in full

Dear prime minister,

I became involved in politics above all because of my love and concern for the natural environment. We depend on nature for everything, and we are degrading the natural world at an astonishing speed. Logically, there is nothing more important.

So when you asked me to stay on as minister for the international environment, I of course accepted. I did so with a view to guarding the progress we had seen in recent years on the international environment, and to building on a record of international leadership that has been so warmly welcomed around the world.

The past four years have been an exhilarating experience for me, and I will forever be grateful that I was put in a position where I could do more for the environment than I thought possible in a lifetime.

I’m proud that in recent years the UK has played a critical, indeed defining role – leading powerful coalitions of ambition and securing world-changing commitments over a very wide range of environmental issues.

And even if in the highly polarised political environment here in the UK there is an unwillingness to acknowledge it, that leadership has been recognised and appreciated by civil society and governments around the world.

As a direct consequence of our environmental leadership, we have seen countries previously ambivalent towards the UK stepping up to support us on numerous unrelated issues. We often find ourselves invited to regional environmental summits as the only “outsider” country present.

It is the UK that civil society routinely turns to for help advancing their cause. In many respects, the UK has become the single most important voice for nature globally.

I believe we can be proud of our record. At Cop26 we secured unprecedented commitments from countries, philanthropists and businesses that – if delivered – will put the natural world on the road to recovery. At the time, WWF said “Nature truly arrived at Cop26”.

The Tropical Forest Alliance said “we’ll look back and realise that this was the day we finally turned the tide on deforestation”. Forbes called it a “Paris moment” for forests. In Glasgow, with strong support from the then prime minister, we were able to achieve far more than any of us ever thought possible.

Since then, the UK has been the driving force behind successful global efforts. We led calls to protect 30% of the world’s land and ocean by the end of this decade, a goal that was agreed at the Biodiversity Cop in Montreal last year where the UK did more than almost any other country to make it a historic success.

Separately we helped galvanise agreement for a new global treaty on plastic pollution. And it was our team of negotiators who – more than any other – secured an agreement for the creation of new laws to protect the high seas.

Our G7 negotiators meanwhile persuaded the main donor countries to align their aid spending not only with the Paris goals, but with nature too.

We have created world-class funding programmes like our new biodiverse landscapes fund, which is creating vast wildlife corridors between countries, providing safe passage for wildlife and jobs for people living in and around the corridors; and our new blue planet fund, which is supporting marine protection, coral and mangrove restoration, and efforts to stop plastic pollution and illegal fishing.

These and other funds are world-class and have leveraged a wave of financial support from other countries and philanthropists.

It has been my privilege to grow our wonderful Blue Belt programme so that today it fully protects an area of ocean significantly larger than India around our overseas territories.

The UK has been able to win arguments internationally in part because we were taking action at home. I won’t pretend we have gone nearly far or fast enough, but there is no doubt that since 2019 we have made meaningful progress.

We strengthened our environmental laws, provided more funding for nature, committed to more protected areas, more action on plastic pollution, and the UK is one of the only countries with legal targets to reverse biodiversity loss.

We have committed to restore our peatlands and plant trees on an unprecedented scale and we are transforming our land subsidy system to support the environment. We have also taken steps to address our international environmental footprint, including new laws stopping the import to the UK of agricultural commodities grown on illegally deforested land.

We also made progress on animal welfare. The government signed off an ambitious action plan for animal welfare, which would have represented the biggest shake up of animal welfare in living memory.

As minister responsible I was able to translate it, bit by bit, into law. We increased sentencing for cruelty from six months to five years, we recognised in law the sentience of animals, enacted and extended the ivory trade ban, introduced measures to break the pet smuggling trade and banned glue traps.

Before you took office, you assured party members, via me, that you would continue implementing the action plan, including the kept animals bill and measures like ending the live export of animals for slaughter, banning keeping primates as pets, preventing the import of shark fins and hunting trophies from vulnerable species.

But I have been horrified as, bit by bit, we have abandoned these commitments – domestically and on the world stage. The kept animals bill has been ditched, despite your promises. Our efforts on a wide range of domestic environmental issues have simply ground to a standstill.

More worrying, the UK has visibly stepped off the world stage and withdrawn our leadership on climate and nature. Too often we are simply absent from key international fora. Only last week you seemingly chose to attend the party of a media baron rather than attend a critically important environment summit in Paris that ordinarily the UK would have co-led.

Worse still, we have effectively abandoned one of the most widely reported and solemn promises we have made on this issue: our pledge to spend £11.6bn of our aid on climate and environment.

Indeed the only reason the government has not had to come clean on the broken promise is because the final year of expenditure falls after the next general election and will therefore be the problem for the next government, not this one.

This is a promise, remember, that has been consistently repeated by prime ministers in the past four years, including by you, and for good reason.

It is the single most important signal of intend [sic] for the dozens of small island and climate-vulnerable states on an issue that is existential for them. These states, remember, have equal sway in the UN where we routinely seek their support on other issues.

That same promise was also used successfully by the UK as leverage to persuade G7 countries to follow suit, and breaking it would not only infuriate them, along with those small island states in the Commonwealth and beyond – it would shred any reputation we have for being a reliable partner.

Prime minister, having been able to get so much done previously, I have struggled even to hold the line in recent months.

The problem is not that the government is hostile to the environment, it is that you, our prime minister, are simply uninterested. That signal, or lack of it, has trickled down through Whitehall and caused a kind of paralysis.

I will never understand how, with all the knowledge we now have about our fundamental reliance on the natural world and the speed with which we are destroying it, anyone can be uninterested.

But even if this existential challenge leaves you personally unmoved, there is a world of people who do care very much. And you will need their votes.

Every survey and poll – without exception – tells us that people care deeply about the natural world, about the welfare of other species, about handing this world in better shape to the next generation. And as these issues inevitably grow in importance, so too will the gap between the British people and a Conservative party that fails to respond appropriately.

It has been a privilege to be able to work with so many talented people in government, in particular my private office, and to have been able to make a difference to a cause I have been committed to for as long as I remember.

But this government’s apathy in the face of the greatest challenge we have faced makes continuing in my current role untenable.

With great reluctance I am therefore stepping down as a minister in order to focus my energy where it can be more useful.

Zac Goldsmith