Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings Debate

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Department: Department for Education

Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings

Richard Burgon Excerpts
Monday 4th September 2023

(8 months, 1 week ago)

Commons Chamber
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Richard Burgon Portrait Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
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We have all listened carefully to what Ministers have been saying. The Prime Minister said it was “completely and utterly wrong” to blame him for failing to fully fund a programme to rebuild England’s schools when he was Chancellor. But is it not in fact the case that what was truly completely and utterly wrong, and what is completely and truly wrong, is for this Prime Minister and this Government to pursue an ideological fixation with austerity, which has caused the lives of children in this country to be put at critical risk?

Gillian Keegan Portrait Gillian Keegan
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I can give the hon. Gentleman some good news. We are going to be funding schools more than ever before: £60 billion a year, and the overall capital budget, as I have said, is £19 billion, and that is from the spending review in 2021, of which £7 billion is allocated to 2023-24. We have been building to continue at the same building rate of new schools for a long time.