My Lords, Amendment 281 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, considers the important issue of school and hospital safety. It would require the Government to keep a register of schools and hospitals in serious disrepair. Nothing is more important than the safety of pupils, patients and staff in schools and hospitals. That is, I am sure, common ground between us across the House; however, it is our belief that the amendment is unnecessary. Furthermore, we think that it would not, in practice, have the effect that the noble Baroness intends. The Government provide significant funding and support for the upkeep of schools and hospitals, including additional support where there are issues that cannot be fully managed locally.
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We already collect and make available extensive data on the condition of both schools and hospitals. Moreover, we are concerned that the amendment could add significant burdens on these sectors. Indeed, at worst, it could serve to undermine safety by moving our focus and resources away from providing targeted support for serious issues, such as RAAC, to instead spend time with schools and hospitals on minor issues that may close spaces temporarily but are easily managed locally.
The school estate consists of more than 22,000 schools and sixth-form colleges, with around 64,000 blocks. Of course, condition varies across the estate and a
number of buildings are reaching the end of their useful life. While local authorities, academy trusts and other bodies are directly responsible for school buildings, we support them by allocating significant capital funding each year, delivering major rebuilding programmes and providing guidance on effective estate management. That is why we have a 10-year rebuilding programme prioritising those with the most significant issues. We have allocated more than £15 billion to improve the condition of the estate since 2015, including £1.8 billion for 2023-24.
The local knowledge that responsible bodies have of their estates, and how they are used, makes them best placed to ensure that school and college buildings are kept safe, compliant with regulations and in good working order. There is no requirement on schools to report temporary closures of buildings to the Department for Education, but the department always stands ready to provide additional support on a case-by-case basis if it is alerted to a safety issue by those responsible bodies.
The noble Baroness made specific reference to reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. The department is taking a more proactive and targeted approach to address the issue of RAAC, which affects a number of responsible bodies, and extensive work and support are in train to manage it. As she said, the issue of RAAC has spanned successive Governments since the 1990s. The Department for Education issued a warning notice in 2018 and published guidance in 2021, which has been regularly updated. Last year the Government took a more direct approach, asking responsible bodies to inform the department of any buildings where they think RAAC may be present. In those cases, the DfE sends a professional surveyor to assess whether RAAC is present. In line with the technical advice, spaces where RAAC was graded critical were closed until appropriate mitigations were put in place.
The department has acted decisively on new evidence and has now changed the guidance so that all school buildings with RAAC are taken out of use until suitable mitigations are implemented. It is worth emphasising for the record that the vast majority of schools are not affected at all. We will continue to support all schools with confirmed RAAC in whatever way we can to minimise any disruption to education, whether through teams of dedicated caseworkers or through capital funding to put mitigations in place.
On 6 September, the Department for Education published details of confirmed schools and colleges with RAAC as of 30 August; it has committed to updating that in due course. As I set out, any expectation or requirement for schools to report all building issues and closures would place an unnecessary burden on the sector and not, in practice, lead to better outcomes. It would mean that the department focuses finite resource on following up with schools that may have to close buildings or single classrooms for a short period and for relatively minor issues. As a rule, those issues are quickly resolved locally—for example, minor maintenance issues, burst pipes or boilers needing repair. It is more effective and efficient for the safety of the school estate if central government continues to focus our efforts on schools that may have serious
issues with buildings that cannot be managed by responsible bodies locally and need additional support, such as our targeted work on RAAC.
However, as I mentioned, the department collects consistent data on the condition of schools. The condition data collection programme, which sent qualified surveyors into nearly every school in England from 2017 to 2019, helps the Department for Education understand the condition of schools to inform capital funding policy and programmes. Individual reports were shared with schools and their responsible bodies during the course of the programme, and a summary of findings has been published. On 20 July, in advance of the Summer Recess, detailed condition data on individual schools was deposited in the House Library; it is available on the Parliament website. A new condition data collection is in train to provide updated information on the condition of schools in England by 2026.
I turn now to health. As set out in the Health Infrastructure Plan and the NHS planning guidance, individual NHS organisations are legally responsible for maintaining their estates. We recognise that backlog maintenance can pose challenges to the efficiency, safety and quality of NHS services, and we also recognise the challenge for providers in maintaining their existing estates and investing in new facilities. To support that, we are investing to upgrade and modernise NHS buildings so that staff have the facilities needed to provide world-class care for patients, including £4.2 billion this year and an additional £4.2 billion next year.
In addition, the NHS also has well-established data publications. It annually publishes the Estates Return Information Collection, which already provides detailed information on the levels of backlog maintenance across the estate and in individual NHS trusts. Duplication would waste significant resources and place additional burdens on front-line services. For example, moving to a three-monthly review process would represent a quadrupling in the reporting burden that currently falls on NHS trusts. That is not an acceptable or proportionate position to take in the context of the challenges that our hard-working NHS estates teams are managing at individual hospital sites.
Amendment 282E in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, would create town centre investment zones, where the local authority could provide business rates discounts and where partnership working is incentivised. That is another area where we can agree on the general intent, but I must disagree that even more legislation is needed.
We all want to see our high streets and town centres adapt and thrive and, to that end, from October the Government will begin a pilot of high street accelerators, which are partnership working groups to support the high street. My officials have consulted with the British Property Federation on the policy design. The initial pilot will gather evidence to test the effectiveness of that type of intervention, and a decision will then be taken about how best to take things forward, including deciding whether that form of intervention could be strengthened, establishing the benefits of introducing
accelerators to more places, or deciding whether other interventions offer greater value to achieve high street regeneration.
The Government are already providing a generous package of business rate support to high street businesses with a retail, leisure and hospitality scheme worth an estimated £2.4 billion in 2023-24, providing eligible businesses with 75% of their bill up to a maximum of £110,000 per business. Furthermore, local authorities already have powers in statute to offer business rates relief support in their local areas. It is important that we see this work through and draw conclusions about the effectiveness of place-based partnership models rather than legislating for a specific model, which may not be the most effective approach.
On Amendments 282F and 295A, which relate to community cultivation, there were lively debates in Committee on this issue, and I appreciate the time taken by the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Young of Old Scone, to discuss this important matter further with us in recent meetings. The Localism Act 2011 requires district and unitary councils to maintain a list of assets of community value, which can be either land or buildings, and which have been nominated by local community groups or parish councils. Local communities have the right to nominate the spaces and places that matter most to them. Alongside this, our national planning policy is clear about the importance of identifying and providing green spaces for community use, including allotment land.
I could not agree more that it is important for government to consult stakeholders as we consider appropriate steps to support local communities to grow locally produced food in their area. However, given the mechanisms which already exist to identify and bring suitable land forward, I feel strongly that we should avoid placing additional and overlapping duties on local authorities.
On Amendment 282NE, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lucas, as he knows, permitted development rights are a well-established part of the planning system, and an existing right allows homeowners to install hard surfacing in their front gardens. However, just to respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, on a point she raised, mentioned too by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, the right requires that where more than five square metres of hard surfacing is proposed, it must either be made of porous materials or run-off water must be directed to a permeable or porous surface within the curtilage of the house. If those conditions are not met, homeowners must submit a planning application to install hard surfacing in their front gardens, where greater than five square metres. However, the point I stress to my noble friend in the context of his amendment is that local authorities already have powers to remove this permitted development right through an article 4 direction where it is necessary to protect local amenity or the well-being of an area. Therefore, I suggest that his amendment is not necessary.
On Amendment 282NC, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, statutory requirements and processes are already in place to ensure that the impacts of airport expansions are
properly assessed and consistency with wider government policy is considered. Local planning authorities are responsible for plan-making and decision-taking, including planning proposals involving airports, and they are the bodies accountable to local communities for the decisions they make. For nationally significant proposals such as the airports national policy statement, there is already a robust review process in place which is designated by statute under the Planning Act 2008. Therefore, on reflection, I hope that the noble Baroness will see that that would not be helpful. As I mentioned, there is already a review power under the Planning Act 2008, and separately there is also a review timetable, which is set out in the Government’s jet zero strategy.
I hope that provides sufficient assurance to the noble Baroness that the powers and processes that she is essentially advocating are already provided for. More generally, I hope that I have sufficiently assured the House that we are already taking action to address the issues raised in this group, and that the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, will feel able to withdraw her amendment.