“Can I welcome everybody back”, began Speaker Lindsay Hoyle as MPs returned to the cauldron of the commons ready for the term’s first round of jousting at Prime Minister’s Questions.
With Westminster all a quiver over concerns about Raac concrete in schools and public buildings, it was of course Rishi Sunak, rather than Keir Starmer, who had more reason to fear the return to despatch box duties.
Thus the prime minister will have been thankful for the loosener from London MP Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup, Con) who got proceedings underway with a question on ULEZ.
Sunak used the opportunity to accuse the Labour leader of “allowing” London Mayor Sadiq Khan to pursue with the ULEZ expansion: “We focus on helping people with the cost of living, all he does is punish them”, he added. Constitutionally questionable, but politically probably quite potent.
Starmer had no desire to engage on the environment, of course. He came armed with six questions on crumbling concrete in schools.
The Labour leader had a pretty clear job today: use the Raac scandal to press his case that the Conservatives have wasted the last 13 years of government. Starmer has long argued Britain is crumbling under the Conservatives. With Raac, his message is no longer merely metaphoric.
Perhaps more pertinently still, Starmer’s “13 years of Tory government” shtick sometimes slides off Sunak — after all, he has only been an MP since 2015 and a minister since 2018.
But on Raac, the chancellor is accused of playing an intimate role in the lack of funding which Labour argues directly caused the crisis. The stakes were hence high for Starmer, too: crumbling concrete offers him an opportunity to tie Sunak indelibly to his party’s perceived failings.
Sunak, therefore, faced an uphill battle. It was his task to communicate to the public — as well as his MPs — that the government has gripped the Raac issue. Of course, he was armed with the handy announcement, published just moments before PMQs, that the list of schools in England affected is now available for concerned parents.
To the proceedings: Starmer’s first question seized cannily on the “hot mic” clip of Gillian Keegan which captured the education secretary clamouring for credit over her Raac response. Should the PM be “thanked” for doing a good job?
The government is doing “everything it can to fix this quickly” and minimise disruption, Sunak responded to opposition jeers.
The Labour leader returned to the despatch box, invoking the criticism of the former permanent secretary at the Department for Education who said Sunak had blocked further building funding for schools as part of the 2021 spending review, “Why does literally everyone else say it’s his fault?”, Sir Keir asked.
Sunak defended his record as chancellor, adding that funding for maintenance and rebuilding will be £2.6bn per year over this Parliament”
He added that Labour didn’t raise RAAC once during the debates on the review, accusing Starmer of jumping aboard another “political bandwagon”. Sunak, often damned as being too dry at the despatch box, was daring to be feisty.
But there are many angles to the Raac story and so Starmer pressed ahead. He noted that the education secretary approved a £34 million refurbishment for her own department, and asked Sunak if he could explain “why a blank check for a Conservative minister’s office is better use of taxpayer’s money than stopping schools collapsing”.
Before the recess, Sunak might have soaked up the criticism, repeating his pre-prepared lines. But not this time. Sunak said the National Audit Office, the government spending watchdog, found Labour’s schools spending plan, repeatedly referenced by Sir Keir, excluded 80 per cent of schools and the scheme was “needlessly wasting resources”.
The programme was found to be “time consuming and expensive — just like the Labour Party”. Cue roars from the Conservative benches.
Starmer parried with a quip of his own. “13 years of cutting corners, botch jobs, sticking-plaster politics — it’s the sort of thing you expect from cowboy builders”.
“The difference is that, in this case, the cowboys are running the country”, he added. The Labour benches liked that.
As prime minister, Sunak has often been fearful of recounting Boris Johnson’s old attack lines — lest Conservative MPs be reminded of how much better his predecessor-but-one performed in the political theatre of the commons. But today, under concerted pressure from Starmer on Raac, he saw fit to revive an old Johnsonian retort: the Labour leader “Captain hindsight” remains on school buildings, he declared.
He insisted that Raac “wasn’t even worthy of a single mention in his speech on education this summer”.
(Labour’s new shadow leader of the House Lucy Powell disagreed in a Point of Order after PMQs. “This is categorically untrue”, she said, pointing to a passage where Sir Keir references “school buildings [starting] to crumble”).
It was a coarser PMQs than some of the exchanges pre-recess, something Sunak had clearly committed too as he explained how Starmer would have kept the UK schools “locked down for longer” during Covid.
Then he pivoted to “Labour-run Wales”, that timeless Tory riposte. He contrasted his performance with the Welsh devolved administration — responsible for education — which is yet to publish its own list of schools affected by RAAC.
In all, both Sunak and Starmer managed to muscle in their pre-prepared attack lines — jousts which were largely lapped up by the respective leaders’ baying backbenchers.
But one wonders if Labour MPs might have been left hungry for more. Sunak pretty much avoided being pinned down on his own personal responsibility for Raac, opting to go on the attack rather than absorb criticism.
Ultimately, given the stakes were somewhat higher for Sunak here, the fact he wriggled away without too many bruises will be a cause for delight in No 10 and probably some minor consternation at Loto. Still, don’t expect Labour’s attacks on crumbling school buildings to quiet anytime soon.
PMQs verdict: Starmer 3, Sunak 3
