What time is PMQs today? Rishi Sunak to face Sir Keir at Prime Minister’s Question as RAAC schools crisis deepens
PM Rishi Sunak will face Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister’s Questions today. It’s the first PMQs since Parliament returned from its summer recess.
What time is PMQs today?
Today’s PMQs is back at its usual time of midday and the session will last around 30 minutes.
You can watch PMQs live on the UK Parliament YouTube channel.
What’s on the agenda for PMQs?
The school concrete crisis will likely dominate the session today. Thousands of kids haven’t been able to return to school for the start of the new academic year, and the government is facing significant criticism over its handling of the situation.
More than 100 schools have been closed or partially closed due to crumbling concrete (RAAC) in their buildings.
The government has already been criticised by the Labour leader over the handling of the crisis. “Instead of coming out and saying this is what we going to do to fix the problems, you’ve got members of the Cabinet trying to blame other people.”
Sunak – when he was chancellor – slashed a £10bn Covid education recovery fund that No 10 claimed he “prioritised” over crumbling school repairs.
Downing Street insists Sunak was not made aware at any stage during the bid process, or subsequently, that school buildings were at risk due to the presence of RAAC.
Labour will on Wednesday force a binding Commons vote in a bid to secure the release of documents that show what Sunak knew about the risks posed to children RAAC before slashing school rebuilding programmes in 2021.
The Opposition will use a once-obscure parliamentary technique known as a humble address to try to secure the publication of correspondence between the Department of Education, No 10 and the Treasury ahead of the 2020 and 2021 Spending Reviews and the 2022 Spring and Autumn Statements to show what advice Mr Sunak was given as chancellor about the need to replace RAAC.
But as Labour lack a majority in the Commons, the bid is likely to fail.
Downing Street insisted that the Government has taken the “right approach” to overhauling crumbling schools, adding: “Certainly for this Government significant pressure has been placed on that because of the global pandemic and that’s why, as the Prime Minister said earlier this week, we prioritised catch-up education, increasing per-pupil funding, teacher salaries, and enabling and supporting pupils to catch up from lost education.”
