Darlington Council leader worried that more schools will be affected by RAAC

Both Carmel College and St Teresa’s Catholic Primary School have been affected so far.

There is worry that if schools did not reply to the Department of Education’s questionnaire relating to RAAC they won’t have been inspected.

The Prime Minister’s spokesperson has stated that a number of schools have not returned their surveys yet.

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Stephen Harker, leader of Darlington Council, explained his concern with how the crisis is developing.

He said: “It seems to be getting worse by the day.

“St Teresa’s is having a survey done this week to discover the extent of the problem.

“If schools have to pay for relocation I suspect some may face financial bankruptsy.

“I worry that for some schools this survey won’t have seemed urgent.

“I think that we are still in the dark until more schools do the testing.

“I am sure we will find out that more of our schools are affected.

“But hopefully the two (that have been identified) will be the only two.

“It’s quite possible that some schools will have bits that date back to the right era.”

Rishi Sunak defended his record yesterday (September 4), telling broadcasters that 95 per cent of England’s schools were not affected.

His spokesperson later said: “I think the Prime Minister was providing reassurance to parents, pupils and schools that the vast majority – we believe more than 95 per cent won’t be affected.

“As you heard from the Education Secretary this morning, we expect numbers to be in the hundreds, not thousands.

“While we are still waiting on schools to return their surveys and confirm their specific situations we can’t be more definitive.”

A spokesperson of the Department of Education explained that it was hard to put a figure on the number of schools still to return the survey.

They said: “We sent out a questionnaire which was followed up with a survey.

“The questionnaire was send to all schools.

“We have had the vast majority back but we are not giving out a formal figure.

“We are still getting some back now.”

The shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson attacked the Prime Minister for his decisions while he was Chancellor.

She said: “The Prime Minister has now revealed what many parents feared: this crisis affects many more schools than they were initially led to believe.

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“The decisions he took directly as chancellor to drastically cut the number of schools to be rebuilt are there in black and white, in a spending review he signed off, and have put children directly at risk from this dangerous form of concrete, which should have been replaced.

“It’s time that this Conservative Government, including the Prime Minister, came clean about which schools are affected, what they knew about this dangerous concrete, and the decisions they took which have seen more than a hundred close.

“If they don’t, Labour will force a vote to release the information in the House of Commons.”