Rishi Sunak is trying to make excuses for the building scandal – but the public have stopped listening

Editorial: The crisis affecting schools could spread far and wide across the public realm. Rishi Sunak and Gillian Keegan will have to learn to take responsibility

Gillian Keegan’s difficulties are barely the start of the scandal (Reuters)

Schools, hospitals, prisons, roads, social housing, courts of law, council and departmental offices, government agencies, prisons, libraries, civic offices, leisure centres, police, ambulance and fire stations, universities and colleges... such was the popularity of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) in the post-war era that it pervaded building projects across the country for at least three decades.

There is scarcely a corner of the public realm not at risk of containing this now fatigued, time-expired material, and now potentially at risk of partial or complete collapse. Put simply: even now, the government does not know for sure where the problems are.

It may turn out to be less of a problem than at first feared – though even a single classroom with an unsafe ceiling is unacceptable. However, the basis for any strategic judgements about financing and prioritising remedial works is simply absent in such a fog of uncertainty.

The prevalence of Raac in schools seems now to be (relatively) well understood, thanks to the public outcry. In hospitals, too, some of the critical dangers also seem to have been identified – visibly so, with scaffolding poles propping up roofs and certain floors apparently closed to heavier patients, a scarcely believable arrangement in a supposedly advanced society.

Across the board, though, there exists nothing more than guesswork. The obvious need is for a national audit, including across the devolved administrations, of building material and construction risk, which would cover asbestos and other problems as well as Raac. It would take time and money, but if tragedy is to be averted it has to begin somewhere, and as soon as possible.

No doubt even some buildings thrown up in recent years may have unexpected design or structural deficiencies. MPs know all about the problems in their very own Palace of Westminster; they should be just as alert to the crumbling architecture in their own constituencies.

That is forward-looking, but it has to be said that the departments for education and health, among others, haven’t yet published a plan of what ministers propose to do about this emergency. Instead, a good deal of the parliamentary debate on Raac has concentrated on who is to blame for this scandal. Although party politics isn’t always the most constructive way to approach the nation’s challenges, the question of accountability is a legitimate one to raise in the current circumstances. Parents, patients and taxpayers do have a right to know how we arrived at this state of affairs, and who is responsible.

History matters here, and past mistakes can and should be faced up to and learnt from. The New Labour governments between 1997 and 2010 no doubt made their own mistakes, and their ambitious school renovation programme was flawed in its own way. Primary schools were neglected in favour of secondaries; large-scale brand-new schools were prioritised over less glamorous repairs and maintenance of windows and roofs.

Yet, as Sir Keir Starmer pointed out, at least some of the schools that are now closed or partially closed would have been subject to the attention of the “future schools” programme, had it been maintained or reformed rather than axed. It was an error made by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, and the contemporary representatives of those parties should own up to it. Some years ago, Michael Gove, who cancelled the scheme, did admit the error, and that it had been handled in a “crass manner” – however, he has gone quiet on the matter more recently.

This is, in truth, a scandal that has unfolded mostly on the Conservatives’ watch. Rishi Sunak wasn’t even an MP in 2010, and Gillian Keegan didn’t enter the Commons until 2017, but they have to accept some responsibility for the actions of their predecessors – and, moreover, for their own actions in office.

Attention has focused on whether and how far Mr Sunak, as chancellor under Boris Johnson, cut the capital budget for schools, and the prime minister and the leader of the opposition traded stats over the despatch box at Prime Minister’s Questions. In the Opposition Day debate, there were many more political points scored, and Ms Keegan’s shadow Bridget Phillipson coolly dismantled what remained of the education secretary’s credibility.

For the public looking on, though, wondering whether the next public building they venture inside might be their last, the fact is that whatever Mr Sunak and his predecessors approved, it was not enough to ensure that schools and other institutions were kept in an acceptable condition. Concerned citizens are rightly impatient, this far into the life of a long-serving government, about excuses – and, unfortunately for Mr Sunak and his colleagues, they have stopped listening.

From now until polling day in the general election, there will be a steady flow of stories about public services having to be cancelled or curtailed because ministers skimped on the care and maintenance of the very fabric of our public infrastructure. The voters will see it as chickens, long since absent during the age of austerity and its aftermath, returning to their roosts and finding them in an unsatisfactory state of repair. Sadly for the government, this scandal is all around us – and it is not going to go away.