Sunak Accused Of Ignoring 'Critical' Danger To Schools Amid Tory Party Meltdown

No 10 censures education secretary over extraordinary ITV outburst as Tory MPs urge Sunak to fund school repairs

- ADAM FORREST & ARCHIE MITCHELL

Rishi Sunak was drawn into the centre of the scandal over collapsing schools yesterday, as he was accused of having "huge culpability" for the crisis while the Tories appeared to descend into a "farcical" blame game.

The prime minister was forced to deny claims by a former top civil servant that he had ignored warnings over a "critical risk to life" by cutting school repairs funding when he was still chancellor.

And in an extraordinary outburst which left No 10 reeling, the education secretary Gillian Keegan said others had "sat on their arse" over the crisis and she had done a "fucking good job".

Mr Sunak and Ms Keegan have struggled to answer questions on the full scale of the RAAC problem - but both admitted that hundreds more schools in England could be affected by crumbling concrete than the 104 buildings already forced to close.

It came as:

• Senior Tory MPs told The Independent that Sunak would have to find "new money" for school repairs
• Ms Keegan insisted she was not referring to Tory colleagues when she said others had "sat on their arse"
• Labour began campaigning on social media on Ms Keegan's quote - saying the Tories "want you to thank them" for collapsing schools
• The government refused to say when a full list of affected schools would finally be published
• Ms Keegan revealed that 1,500 schools are yet to respond to a survey on whether they have RAAC (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete)

Jonathan Slater, the former top civil servant at the Department for Education (DfE), revealed that officials were aware of the need to rebuild between 300 and 400 schools a year while Mr Sunak was in the Treasury from 2019 to 2022.