Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 19 September 2023 to Question 198289 on Defence: Buildings, when he plans that surveys to identify buildings which may have been constructed with RAAC on his Department's land will be completed.

The Government has acted decisively to tackle this issue and has taken a proportionate approach informed by experts.

Professional advice from experts on RAAC has evolved over time, from advice in the 1990s that RAAC did not pose a safety hazard to more recent advice on identifying and assessing structural adequacy.

The Office of Government Property wrote to all Government Property Leaders in 2019, and again in September 2022, highlighting safety alerts on RAAC and signposting guidance on identification and remediation. The Government also created a cross-Government working group on RAAC this year to collectively address the issue.

Since then, departments have been surveying properties and depending on the assessment of the RAAC, decided to either continue to monitor the structure, reinforce it, or replace it. This is in line with the approach recommended by the Institution of Structural Engineers.