Sunak demands Starmer gets his facts straight over RAAC row

       Rishi Sunak has furiously demanded Keir Starmer "get his facts straight" before "he jumps on the latest political bandwagon".

       Taking to the Commons dispatch box for the first time since the summer recess, Rishi Sunak slammed the Labour leader for never raising school rebuilding prior to the RAAC headlines.

       "He talked about school budgets and talked about what I had done, but let me just walk him through the facts of what that spending review actually did given he brought it up.

       "Funding for school maintenance and rebuilding will average ￡2.6bn a year over this parliament as a result of that spending review, which represents a 20 percent increase on the years before.

       "Far from cutting budgets - as he alleges - the amount spent last year was the highest in decades. That spending review maintained the school rebuilding programme, delivering 500 schools over a decade - a pace completely consistent with what had happened previously."

       READ MORE: Starmer squirms as he admits he can’t say how Labour would fund school repairs

       Rishi Sunak at PMQs (Image: Parliament Live)

       Rishi Sunak also pointed out that during the debates on the spending review in question, Labour "did not raise the issue of RAAC one single time".

       Mr Sunak slammed Sir Keir, telling him: "Before he jumps on the next political bandwagon, he should get his facts straight!"

       Shortly before PMQs, the Government published the full list of the 147 schools affected by RAAC.

       Sir Keir was keen to emphasise Rishi Sunak's personal involvement in the row, as well as the Tories' decision to cut the Blair Government's school rebuilding programme, bringing it up twice.

       Rishi Sunak said the rebuilding programme was reviewed by the National Audit Office at the start of the Coalition Government, and found it "actually excluded 80 percent of schools".

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       Keir Starmer said the Government is behaving like 'cowboy builders' (Image: Parliament Live)

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       "What did they find? That it was a third more expensive than it needed to be, needlessly wasting resources that could have gone to schools.

       "The worst bit is that that programme - because [Sir Keir's] now talking about the physical conditions of schools - that programme only allocated funds solely on the basis of ideology with no regard whatsoever to the physical conditions of schools".

       Mr Sunak joked that the review of the new schools programme found it "time-consuming and expensive - just like the Labour party!"

       Sir Keir said the Government sounded like cowboy builders, "saying that everyone else is wrong, everyone else is to blame, protesting that they've done an effing good job even as the ceiling falls in".

       The Labour leader said: "The cowboys are running the country".

       Express.co.uk has now published a full map of all the schools the Government say are affected by the RAAC crisis.

       This morning the Government is worrying about how to limit RAAC evacuations to schools only, as fears grow hundreds of public buildings including courtrooms, care homes and hospitals may also be affected by the crumbly concrete.

       Education Secretary Gillian Keegan is being warned she may have unleashed “Pandora’s Box” with her overly cautious decision to shut down schools.

       Keir Starmer has refused to say whether he’d relaunch a school rebuilding programme, and if so how he would fund it.

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