FORMER Home Secretary Dame Priti Patel has said she will be asking Education Secretary Gillian Keegan for greater capital investment in 54 schools in Essex which have been impacted by the crumbling concrete crisis.
Dame Priti, MP for Witham in Essex, told GB News: “I will be very upfront and to be fair, I’ve been working with Gillian since this announcement came to me last Wednesday night.
“I’m very clear about the resources that we need, hence my question to the Prime Minister yesterday.
“I’m not letting up on that. I want to know that my county council will not be taking the burden, that they’re going to be supported.”
In a discussion with GB News’ Political Editor Christopher Hope, she said: “I want to know that my schools and our heads and our teachers are going to be listened to. And ultimately, this isn’t just about the short term.
“We need all the kids back to school. I want our children to be in classes with their teachers, but it’s also about the long term. Schools like Honywood will need great capital investment and that’s what we need.”
Asked if crumbling schools were symbolic of a Government “on its last legs”, she said: “I think that’s a Labour line, if I may say so.
“Whichever way you want to frame it, you also have to remember you can go two miles to another part of my constituency, I have new schools, I have new academies.
“I’ve got many new schools that are being built, because this part of Essex is growing. We’re building new homes and with that, we are getting new schools.”
“So actually, no, that is not the reality of it.”
