Britons are throwing away an estimated 1.7 billion pieces of plastic a week – with campaigners describing it as a crisis “out of control”.
The typical household disposes of 60 items of plastic packaging every seven days – equating to a national total of 90 billion a year.
More than 225,000 people took part in The Big Plastic Count and kept track of their waste.
Packaging for snacks, fruits and vegetables was most counted.
Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic – which performed the research – says the UK throws away more plasticper person than every other country in the world, barring the US.
Just 17% of plastic remnants were recycled compared with 58% being incinerated, the study suggests.
Greenpeace noted that incinerated plastic releases more carbon dioxide per tonne than burning coal – exacerbating climate change – and the continued use of incinerators is “incompatible” with the government’s pledge to reach net zero by 2050.
Frustrated with the lack of progress since the first count in 2022, Greenpeace UK and Everyday Plastic appealed to Westminster and supermarkets to “show leadership” at the Global Plastic Treaty negotiations held in Canada later this month.
They urged policymakers to call for a legally binding global target to cut plastic production by at least 75% by 2040.
Campaigners are also urging the government to speed up the introduction of innovative reuse and refill systems, end approvals for new incineration plants, and completely ban all plastic waste exports by 2027.
Greenpeace UK political campaigner Rudy Schulkind said evidence from the Big Plastic Count shows the plastics crisis was “out of control” with production “set to triple by 2050 if the industry has its way”.
He added: “The worst affected are marginalised communities, who are more likely to live near incineration sites or to be harmed by the waste we dump in countries in the Global South.”
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4:56
Can a net zero target be hit?
Laura Burley, who led the project, said: “If I started counting every bit of plastic packaging the UK throws away in a year, it would take me until 2077 to count every piece.”
She added while the challenge of fixing the issue could feel “overwhelming”, there were “solutions out there” provided politicians and big businesses get on board.
One participant of the count said she was “shocked” when receiving the results.
Chloe Scrivener from Dorset said: “I want to be part of a real solution because, although I believe we should all feel a sense of responsibility for our planet and its future, I’d like the government to make bigger changes and act more quickly, for the future generations like my son, and the wildlife, as there’s so much plastic everywhere and it’s so harmful.”
The sacking of Azhar Ali as Labour’s candidate in the Rochdale by-election is the biggest disaster for Sir Keir Starmer in his nearly four years as leader of the party.
There will now be an almighty inquest into how a candidate who had made such comments about Israel and Gaza was selected for such a high-profile by-election.
Defending Rochdale was never going to be easy for Labour. Sir Tony Lloyd’s majority at the 2019 general election was 9,668, with the Conservatives in second place.
But the challenge from firebrand left-winger George Galloway and the constituency’s former Labour MP Simon Danczuk standing for Reform UK already presented difficulties.
But now Labour goes into the by-election on 29 February with no candidate, even though Mr Ali’s name will still be on the ballot paper, right at the top of the list in alphabetical order.
Follow latest: Labour withdraws support for Rochdale candidate
Why was he selected? Not surprisingly, as happens in many constituencies with a large ethnic minority population, the local Asian community will have wanted one of their own to represent them.
Mr Ali faced a strong challenge, however, from political journalist Paul Waugh, who was seen as the preferred choice of Sir Keir and the Labour leadership. It was something of a surprise when he wasn’t selected.
It has been reported that voting at the selection meeting was 87 votes for Mr Ali to 68 for Mr Waugh. Hardly a resounding victory for Mr Ali.
And Mr Waugh, as an experienced Westminster operator, would surely have been a safe pair of hands.
But the Labour activists who chose Mr Ali weren’t were not selecting a political novice. He’s the leader of the Labour group on Lancashire County Council and he’s been a parliamentary candidate twice, in his home town of Pendle.
He stood against Tory MP Andrew Stephenson in 2015 and 2019, coming second, 6,186 votes behind Mr Stephenson in 2019. He also acted as an adviser to the Blair and Brown governments between 2005 and 2010.
He has nearly 25 years’ experience in local government, but alarm bells should have rung in the Labour high command over his backing for Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 Labour leadership election.
That’s despite saying Mr Corbyn would be a disaster for the country in 2015, when Mr Corbyn first stood for leadership after the resignation of Ed Miliband.
So if the first Labour blunder was selecting Mr Ali in the first place, the second was standing by him for 48 hours after his comments about the 7 October attacks in Israel were first reported in the Mail on Sunday.
A third blunder was failing to discover that it wasn’t just the Mail on Sunday disclosure that was embarrassing. Labour now admits “new information” and “further comments” have come to light.
Senior Tories claim the disclosure of his controversial remarks prove that Sir Keir’s claims – made repeatedly in Prime Minister’s Questions and elsewhere in recent weeks – were a hollow sham.
On the Labour left, meanwhile, they claim it was grossly unfair that Sir Keir and the leadership backed Mr Ali when left-wingers Kate Osamor, Andy McDonald and Mr Corbyn himself had been suspended over antisemitism allegations.
Read more politics news: Labour candidate ‘fell for online conspiracy theory’ Formal complaint filed against Labour candidate Hancock defends use of taxpayer-funded Jaguar
But there may be worse to come for Labour. Suddenly, the Rochdale disaster – 17 days before polling day in that by-election – plunges the two by-elections this week, in Wellingborough and Kingswood, into potential disarray.
Until this weekend, bookies and pollsters had been predicting victory for Labour in both seats, even though Labour is fighting to overturn big Conservative majorities.
Now, any senior Labour figures campaigning in the final days ahead of polling day this Thursday – and indeed the candidates themselves – will be besieged by questions about Mr Ali and the Rochdale fiasco.
Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, deputy party leader Angela Rayner and leading shadow cabinet member Lisa Nandy have all made high-profile visits to Rochdale to support Mr Ali in the past week.
The Tories, of course, will be cock-a-hoop. A week in which an embattled Rishi Sunak was facing a rise in inflation, two potential by-election wipe-outs and renewed plotting against him by Tory MPs has now turned into Christmas, Easter and his birthday all at once.
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2:13
McFadden on support being withdrawn for Ali
The veteran Labour MP John McDonnell told Sky News he couldn’t recall the sacking of a by-election candidate during a campaign before. And, in covering by-elections for 40 years, nor can I.
This is far worse for Sir Keir and Labour than the “Red wall” Hartlepool by-election defeat in 2021 and the ULEZ backlash that handed victory to the Tories in Boris Johnson’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency in July.
Labour’s lead in the opinion polls has remained stubbornly around the 20% mark for months. That could now change.
Will we see the beginning of the end of Labour’s seemingly unassailable poll lead?
Is this a turning point for the Tories? Possibly. They won’t win Rochdale, but they won’t care about that. Humiliation for Sir Keir Starmer is a massive gift for the Conservatives.
And despite all the talk from the likes of campaign chief Pat McFadden that Sir Keir has taken a tough decision, it doesn’t look like that.
It’s more than an embarrassing retreat and U-turn by the Labour leader. It’s also an unmitigated disaster for Labour and Sir Keir’s worst crisis in his time as leader.
There is a “crisis” in the number of barristers available for rape and serious sexual offence (RASSO) cases, a new survey has shown.
The Criminal Bar Association (CBA) said 64% of prosecutors and 66% of defence barristers will not reapply to work on RASSO court lists going forward due to the low legal aid fees they are paid and the impact on their wellbeing.
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The figures come as the average wait for a bailed rape trial to conclude from the day of an alleged offence hit around five and a half years – including an average wait of 18 months from someone being charged until the end of the trial.
The CBA said many cases were now waiting longer than 18 months, with members telling them of court dates being set for the end of 2026, despite the charges happening in 2022.
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Chair of the organisation, Tana Adkin KC, said barristers were “committed to do everything [they] can to address the backlog and continue providing the highest quality advocacy whilst ensuring the vulnerable, complainants and the accused alike are heard”.
But, she said, without “urgent intervention” from the government, the delays will only continue to grow, adding: “Our ability to deliver what government wants, what courts require and the public expects is currently unsustainable.”
More on Ministry Of Justice
According to figures from the CBA, there has been a 30% fall in income for barristers over the past 20 years, with some specialist criminal barristers taking home an average of £12,000 a year after expenses in their first three years at the bar.
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2:11
Why did barristers go on strike over fees?
Following strike action in 2022, the government increased legal aid fees by 15% – but the CBA argued this was the bare minimum recommended in an independent review of charges, and higher pay was needed to keep people in the profession, with swathes of young barristers quitting the courts.
Now, according to the survey, barristers will be walking away from RASSO cases altogether, which represent nearly 9,800 cases in the current backlog of over 66,000 in crown court – up 226% from the historic low of 3,005 at the end of 2018.
A total of six out of 10 of the 780 barristers who responded to the survey cited poor legal aid fees as the reason for refusing to take on RASSO cases in the future, while half pointed to poor well-being as a result of the challenging work.
“Doing nothing to increase RASSO fees is not an option unless we want to accept that rape and serious sexual offence trials will continue to be delayed for years, repeatedly postponed on the day because there is no barrister to prosecute or defend,” added Ms Adkin.
“The human cost for victims of these crimes as well as innocent defendants is beyond financial measure.”
Sky News has contacted the Ministry of Justice for a response.
Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters have marched through central London – a day after the UK joined the US in attacking Houthi bases in Yemen.
The Iran-backed rebel group, which supports Hamas, has been targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
It has vowed to damage vessels it believes are heading to and from Israel until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
Middle East crisis – follow latest
One speaker in Parliament Square on Saturday said British planes had been “flying where they do not belong”.
A few Yemeni flags were spotted on the march, Sky News correspondent Ivor Bennett said.
One placard read “Hands off Yemen”. According to its bearer, the only way to stop Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea is to support a ceasefire in Gaza.
Another placard read: “UK + US wants war. Yemen supports Palestine. Gaza wants to live.”
Six arrests have been made, two of which were “in relation to offensive placards”, the Metropolitan Police said.
Another three people were arrested on suspicion of showing support for a proscribed organisation – an offence under the Terrorism Act.
One person was held for being in possession of “stickers to be used for criminal damage”.
A “significant policing presence” of about 1,700 officers was planned by Scotland Yard, which handed out leaflets.
The protesters want Israel to stop its military operations in Gaza, which followed the Hamas attacks in Israel on 7 October.
Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, accused the British government of “complicity” with Israel.
Speaking in Parliament Square, he said Palestine was a “nation of freedom fighters”, adding: “I stand before you with a broken heart but not a broken spirit.”
He also congratulated South Africa for bringing a genocide case against Israel at the UN’s International Court of Justice.
That case has “gone down well with demonstrators”, Ivor Bennett said, with one woman saying she was “ecstatic” at the news.
Mary Lou McDonald, the president of Sinn Fein, told the crowd that a better situation for the Palestinian people is possible.
“When I say this, standing in London, in common cause with you, (having) walked our own journey out of conflict, building peace for 25 years, this can happen,” she said.
“This must happen and we will ensure that it does.”
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn addressed protesters in Parliament Square, while his former shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, could be seen leading the march as it left Bank.
There were restrictions, including: any person participating was warned not to deviate from the specified route; the speeches had to end by 4.30pm; the whole event had to end by 5pm.
No participant was allowed to enter the area around the Israeli Embassy.
James Cleverly, the home secretary, said he had been briefed by Met commissioner Sir Mark Rowley on plans to “ensure order and safety” during the protest.
“I back them to use their powers to manage the protest and crack down on any criminality,” he said.
“It was an all consuming fear that I would just stop breathing in my sleep, but still, all I wanted was to take more.”
“I approached my own son in the street asking for drugs, that’s how low I was, benzos just destroyed my life.”
These are the stories of two separate people with the same catastrophic addiction to a prescription drug.
Thirty years apart in age and 200 miles apart in distance, their stories are scarily similar.
I meet Rory Maslen (they/them), 21, at their university flat in Leeds. As Rory sank into the sofa, they look at me with a timid smile.
They’re about to talk me through haunted years. The ones filled with an undying desperation to guzzle more of the drug that was killing them.
Inside the four walls of Rory’s university room once lived anxiety, depression and what they thought was the remedy – benzos.
“There were weeks at a time when the only reason I would leave my accommodation was to go and pick up a few boxes of pills.
“I was literally eating pills by the handful just to get through the day.”
Across the border in Edinburgh, William Anderson, 53, sits in his temporary accommodation generously recounting his painful tale, as I hang on his every word.
“After my daughter died when I was 19, I turned to benzos to cope with the grief.
“I got them prescribed by the doctor – seven pills a day – but when that wasn’t enough I started getting them on the street too.”
Read more: Crisis warning over deadly drug cocktail ’10 times stronger than Fentanyl’ UK’s largest-ever stash of synthetic opioids seized
What are benzos?
Benzodiazepines are anti-anxiety prescription drugs that have flooded the illicit market.
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1:46
What are Benzos?
The drug is supposed to be prescribed, but thousands of vulnerable people across the UK are buying dangerous street benzos to self-medicate according to charities like Turning Point and UKAT.
And now testing services are raising the alarm after finding street benzos sold for as little as 10p are being cut with a synthetic opioid 10 times stronger than Fentanyl.
‘Stripped of any free will’
What began as self-medication for Rory turned into self destruction.
“Before I knew it, I was completely stripped of any free will, any major thought in my head all the time was focused on getting more benzos.”
Rory told me they were taking 30 benzo pills per day when they started experiencing life threatening seizures and side effects.
“Your muscles hurt, your bones hurt, you have constant tremors and if you go outside in the sun it feels like your eyes are burning. You’re hot and cold, more so than I’ve ever felt ever before.”
‘Approached my own son for drugs’
For Will, a lifetime of trauma, grief and isolation drove him to dive head first into what he calls “benzo oblivion”.
Taking 100 pills a day and selling benzos to fuel his addiction, Will was on the edge of death.
After a 20 year battle with benzos, Will tells me he tried to take his own life. The amount of benzos he took knocked him out for four days, but still he continued using.
“The lowest moment of my life was approaching a group of guys in the street and asking for drugs.
“When I looked up I realised it was my own son – the only son that was still in contact with me.
“The look of shame he had was the worst feeling in the world.
“The next morning I woke up and screamed in the mirror, you either live or you die.”
Will has been sober ever since that day.
He created his own support group called “Oor Willie”, which now has over 1,700 members, and he trained with the Scottish Drugs Forum qualifying as an addiction support worker in August.
It was Rory’s passion for music and their drive to get back to playing with their band Kiosk that gave them the courage to bear through and taper off the benzos with the support of their family.
When I asked Rory and Will what they would say to young people considering self-medicating with benzos now, their response was the same.
Musicians have told Sky News they are facing an existential career crisis due to low mental wellbeing caused by economic uncertainties within the industry.
It comes as a new study of 6,000 musicians across the UK found that a third of them are experiencing low mental wellbeing, with one in four saying it is contributing to them being likely to leave the industry within five years.
The Help Musicians and Music Minds Matter survey showed that 43% of professional musicians earn less than £14,000 a year and suggested that low income is one of the causes of poor mental health among musicians.
Amid the report’s findings, the industry’s trade union is calling for the government to invest more in initiatives which boost grassroots music and help musicians break into international markets.
‘We need a root and branch look’
Chris Walters, national organiser at the Musicians’ Union, said: “We would ask the government to reflect on the immense value of the music industry to the UK, and then consider the lives of the musicians.
“How is it that musicians can keep producing this fantastic music? The UK is well-known for such low levels of pay and such precarious lifestyles. So we need a root and branch look.”
Rebecca Toal, a freelance trumpet player who also teaches, said she finds it difficult to find enough paid opportunities in the industry to earn a sustainable living. The economic uncertainty is having a knock-on effect on her mental health.
‘Performing is sometimes impossible’
She told Sky News: “It’s pretty up and down. It’s very difficult to get opportunities, get paid work, if it’s paid work maybe it’s not enough.
“The anxiety also means that performing is sometimes impossible. Either you get shaky or your breathing – which is very important for the trumpet – just goes out of the window. Or you’re kind of disassociated from things.
“It’s really important when you’re performing to be in a good mind-head space. And if you’ve got problems with your mental health that’s going affect it.”
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A UK government spokesperson said: “We are committed to maximising the potential of our world-class music industry so it can continue to grow and support jobs, and we are investing millions of pounds in initiatives to boost the grassroots music sector and help musicians break into international markets.
“We are also considering the findings of the Good Work Review, which sets out recommendations to support the creative industries’ workforce, including freelancers, and will respond in due course.”
Mia was just 10 years old when she and her family knew she needed mental health support.
But their attempts to access help were met with delays and denials that lead to such a severe deterioration in her condition it nearly cost Mia her life.
“I wasn’t deemed sick enough, I was told it was fine and there was nothing wrong with me”, Mia explains. “I was telling them, ‘this is not normal’, and they didn’t listen.”
But Mia was struggling. Her mental health was worsening and would eventually reach crisis point.
“By the time I was 12 I was self-harming. I felt like some days I couldn’t cope with the day but I was still performing well academically and that, when you’re a kid in this country, that is how they mark your wellbeing.”
It was when Mia turned 15 that help eventually came but only after she suffered a breakdown. She was arrested for false imprisonment and criminal damage after an attack on her teacher, and eventually admitted to a psychiatric unit.
Mia believes earlier intervention would have prevented her deterioration into crisis.
“I would have killed myself. I would have. Mental health care is lifesaving, just as lifesaving as cardiac care, just as lifesaving as diabetes care. You cannot live a healthy, happy life if you are mentally unwell, without support.”
Mia’s story about her struggle to access the right mental health care at the right time exposes a system in crisis. Children and young adults across the country are being forced to endure long waits for specialist care and demand continues to grow.
NHS England estimates a quarter of all 17 to 19-year-olds now have a probable mental health disorder compared to one in 10 just six years ago.
David Barker and his team at Youth Talk offer free confidential counselling for 13 to 25-year-olds.
But they are overrun with record numbers of children and young people in need of help.
The charity has doubled its capacity – but even this is not enough.
Mr Barker told Sky News: “Before the pandemic there was a crisis of young people struggling with their mental health, the pandemic has compounded all of that, hugely, and as a result of that we’re seeing a long tail of the COVID pandemic in terms of mental health and particularly young people.”
Community health services are also struggling. A survey of NHS Providers found that children are now waiting an average of 91 weeks for an autism spectrum disorder assessment and between 72 and 207 weeks for an ADHD assessment.
Read more: Seasonal affective disorder – or SAD – isn’t just ‘winter blues’ Student mental health problems almost tripled in recent years – study
Jenna Hughes had to wait three years for a diagnosis for her eldest child Amelia.
Her youngest, Imogen, has already been waiting for a year. Caring for Amelia and Imogen without any extra help is having an impact on everyone in the family.
“I’ve struggled with my mental health,” Jenna says. “Because of the level of care my children need. That’s hard on my family. The NHS is overrun but it puts so much pressure on families, and strain and stress.”
Demand is only expected to increase.
And if there is no urgent action, healthcare providers like the Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust predict that by next year their community waiting lists for children and young people will have more than doubled since the pandemic.
Its chief executive Elliot Howard-Jones said the biggest challenge for his trust in responding to the growing crisis was finding the right staff.
“It’s absolutely not where we want to be, we want to have much shorter waiting times for children, it significantly affects their life chances and their educational attainment if we don’t see them quickly.
“The biggest challenge in terms of community services is not the vision for what we want to do which is clearly to support people at home and to help children develop as best as they can, it’s getting the staff and growing the service quickly enough to be able to respond.”
Mia is 21 now. She is in the final year of a wild animal biology degree at the Royal Veterinary College after passing her A levels with top grades.
But the outcome could have been very different and for the many thousands of children still struggling it will be unless the crisis in children’s mental health is addressed urgently.
A Labour government would intervene to alleviate the “heartbreaking” baby formula pricing crisis, the shadow health secretary has promised.
In May, Sky News uncovered the extent of the desperate measures some parents are taking to feed their babies due to the rising costs of infant milk.
One father explained how he was regularly stealing baby formula or buying it on the black market.
Others have told us about watering down feeds, buying open tins on Facebook or substituting formula for condensed milk.
Now Wes Streeting MP has told Sky News that if Labour came to power, he would move to abolish “outdated” restrictions around the marketing and promotion of first infant milk.
Current restrictions mean retailers can’t run discount promotions on first formula milk, and customers can’t use store loyalty points or vouchers to buy it – which places it in the same category as tobacco or lottery tickets.
The restrictions were designed to help promote breastfeeding as the first and best choice for families.
Mr Streeting said he fully supported breastfeeding but added a Labour government would take action on baby formula to help families.
He said: “The idea that this is a product that mums would be shoplifting because they couldn’t afford it for their babies is a heartbreaking thought.
“You have the food banks that report they’re having to ration baby milk because they’re running out.”
He added: “You hear harrowing stories of mums that are watering down infant formula to try and make it last that bit longer, even though it’s not particularly safe for the baby.
“In that context, the idea that we would stick to what I think are now outdated rules banning people from being able to use milk tokens, food bank vouchers, coupons to make baby milk more affordable, I just think it’s just completely wrong-headed in this cost-of-living crisis.”
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0:53
Labour leader on baby milk ‘crisis’
Data from First Steps Nutrition shows the cheapest brand of formula milk has risen in price by 45% in the past two years, while the average hike is 24%.
The SNP’s Alison Thewliss MP, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Infant Feeding, has led calls for a price cap for baby formula – an idea that Mr Streeting said he would also be willing to look at.
The Shadow Health and Social Care Secretary added that retailers also had a role to play: “I think supermarkets have got to do everything they can to make the price of the shop for families more affordable.
“They should look at particular goods like infant formula milk, like baby food, those real essentials and think about how they keep an eye on value for money for families.”
Labour’s pledge to intervene was not welcomed by everyone.
Several infant feeding specialists pointed out that there were other ways of helping families, including increasing the value of Healthy Start vouchers, which no longer cover the cost of a tin of formula.
Mr Streeting said his initiative would be a relatively simple measure to help families “so that people have children growing up in this country in the 21st century aren’t experiencing Dickensian levels of destitution and poverty”.
Read more: Baby milk ‘crisis’ amid surge in families struggling to feed infants Inside the baby banks rationing formula milk to one tin per family each week
The founder of Hartlepool Baby Bank, Emilie De Bruijn, said: “Demand for us at Hartlepool has grown by almost a third since Sky News first visited in May.
“Some families are desperate; we are struggling to keep up with demand.
“I’d welcome whatever can be done to make these impossible situations better for parents.”
While work is underway in some parts of Scotland to provide more financial help for families, the Westminster government has not yet taken specific action despite growing calls for action.
The Department for Health and Social Care has previously said: “We recognise the impact rising prices are having on families, which is why we are providing significant support worth on average £3,300 per household, including holding down energy bills, uplifting benefits and delivering direct cash payments.”
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has come under fire from colleagues for her “unilateral” decision to determine which school buildings need to close as part of the concrete crisis, Sky News has learned.
Ministers elsewhere in Whitehall fear she has opened a “Pandora’s box” by setting a more cautious than necessary standard that could affect a huge array of public buildings, including housing stock, local authority buildings and the military estate.
The education secretary has made clear she took the most cautious of the options presented by officials over which buildings to shut last week.
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Sky News understands that the decision was signed off by the education team in Number 10 with the PM’s knowledge.
However there was no cabinet office meeting and no ministerial follow-up for days after the issue emerged.
The Department for Education “belatedly” shared the technical advice on why they shut school with others in Whitehall – some of whom disagree it shows a need to shut schools
Ministers are worried they could now face massive disruption and spiralling costs if other public buildings are now held to the same precedent set in the Department for Education.
“This is suboptimal,” said a senior Whitehall figure. “She has made a unilateral decision. It’s not been resolved, and it’s a bit of a mess.”
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14:38
Gillian Keegan denies complacency
Read more from Sky News: UK ‘underinvesting’ in infrastructure with concrete crisis ‘forseeable’ Voters prefer Rachel Reeves to Jeremy Hunt for chancellor – poll Bank of England’s ‘regrettable’ mistakes ‘fuelled inflation’
Sources close to the education secretary say the decision was never intended to act as a precedent since the school estate is unique. “We are being over-cautious,” said an education source.
There are tens of thousands of school buildings in disparate parts of the country and often do not have easy access to estate managers, monitors or experts who can monitor the state of buildings, and the buildings themselves are unusually crowded.
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However, there is concern elsewhere that the decision by Ms Keegan may nevertheless appear like a precedent, and if other public buildings are not held to the same standard they will have to fix them or face legal risk and political pressure.
Responsibility for the issue will now fall to the Government Property Agency, but ministers are already concerned about the implications for budgets.
“There is a big fear this is going to spiral,” said a Tory source.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan was caught on camera complaining about not being thanked for doing a “f***ing good job” over the unsafe concrete crisis.
After an interview with ITV News in Westminster, the cabinet minister criticised others for being “sat on their arses” and claimed the government had gone “over and above” in addressing concerns relating to reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC).
She said: “Does anyone ever say ‘You know you’ve done a f***ing good job because everyone else has sat on their arses and done nothing.
“No signs of that, no?”
Rayner gets new role in reshuffle – follow politics latest
Stephen Morgan MP, Labour’s shadow schools minister, said her comments were a “staggering admission that Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives have done nothing to address a problem that they have known about for years”.
“The education secretary has displayed staggering arrogance for saying she deserves a pat on the back for the chaos that is gripping our schools on their watch,” he said.
“Families, school leaders and school staff deserve an immediate apology for these appalling comments.”
Ms Keegan is due to be interviewed on the Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge on Sky News tonight at 7:30pm.
A Number 10 source said her comments were “wrong” but the prime minister “has full confidence in his education secretary”.
Thousands of pupils face disruption at the start of term this week following a last-minute order to fully or partially close 104 schools because of concerns about RAAC.
Pupils face being taught in temporary classrooms, on different sites or even forced into pandemic-style remote lessons.
Mr Sunak has acknowledged hundreds more schools in England could be caught up in the crisis as he faced accusations he failed to fund a programme to replace ageing classrooms while chancellor.
The prime minister said that 95% of England’s schools were unaffected, leaving open the possibility that more than a thousand could still be impacted by concerns about RAAC.
Mr Sunak said: “New information came to light relatively recently and it’s important that once it had, that the government acted on it as swiftly as possible.
“Of course I know the timing is frustrating, but I want to give people a sense of the scale of what we are grappling with here: there are around 22,000 schools in England and the important thing to know is that we expect that 95% of those schools won’t be impacted by this.”
But critics have accused the Tories of a “shambolic” handling of the situation, saying concerns about the material have been well known for years.
RAAC is essentially a lighter-weight form of concrete, used to build roofs, schools, colleges and other buildings from the 1950s until the mid-1990s.
Experts have long-warned the material has now reached the end of its shelf life and is liable to collapse.
Earlier Jonathan Slater, who was secretary at the Department for Education (DfE) from May 2016 to August 2020, claimed the Treasury had failed to fully fund school rebuilding schemes – including during Mr Sunak’s time at the helm.
He said up to 400 schools a year need to be replaced, but the DfE only got funding for 100, despite the government knowing there was a “critical risk to life”.
Mr Sunak dismissed that criticism as “completely and utterly wrong”.
But Labour insisted he “bears huge culpability for his role in this debacle” – saying funding for rebuilding schools has been slashed over the years.
Analysis published by the party found that spending on school rebuilding between 2019 and 2020 was at £765m, but this fell to £560m the following year.
Spending dropped again to £416m in 2021 to 2022, the party said.
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Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, said: “The defining image of 13 years of the Conservative-run education system will be children sat under steel girders to stop the roof falling in.
“Rishi Sunak bears huge culpability for his role in this debacle: he doubled down on Michael Gove’s decision to axe Labour’s schools rebuilding programme and now the chickens have come home to roost – with yet more disruption to children’s education.”