Bill Esterson MP accuses Government of failing to act on ventilation in schools

Bill Esterson MP questioned the Government’s response to the issue of ventilation in schools during Education Questions in Parliament.

Mr Esterson, MP for Sefton Central, said the Government was warned about the risk to pupils of inadequate ventilation but failed to act to provide the necessary air purification systems.

Mr Esterson suggested the lack of proper ventilation had contributed to missed school days for thousands of pupils who had contracted Covid in school.

Mr Esterson asked in the Commons on Monday (Jan 31): “SAGE advised the government to improve ventilation in schools in May 2020. They warned the government to prepare for winter in July 2020. Over 10 million days of in-person teaching were lost last term. Over 400,000 children were out of school with Covid last week. A quarter of schools face teacher absences of 15% or more. Air cleaning devices are more than 18 months late and are being offered to fewer than 1 in 30 classrooms. Why did ministers ignore the advice about the importance of ventilation in schools for so long?”

Education Minister Robin Walker MP responded: “The government has consistently guided ventilation is an important part of the measures to take against Covid. But what we have done is actually have a world leading programme of rolling out first of all CO2 monitors so we can identify where the classrooms were that needed extra support in this respect, roughly three per cent of classrooms came back as needing the extra support and the Secretary of State confirmed last week that every single  school that meets the criteria and has applied for those will get them paid for by the DfE so this is a successful response to absolutely ensure that schools have the support that they need.”

Mr Esterson said following the exchange: “Pupils have been sitting in their coats while windows have had to be wide open throughout winter, because the Government has done too little to provide the air cleaning systems schools need. This is despite warnings from as long ago as May 2020 by their own advisers. It’s no wonder so many children and staff have been off school even recently and of course the more children who have covid, the more the virus spreads across the community. Children need to be in school and have missed way too much education already. The lack of investment in this area by the Conservatives is shocking and has surely led to many children falling ill and possibly passing the virus to vulnerable family members and others. The failure to support schools with adequate ventilation is yet another example of where the government has got the big calls badly wrong during the pandemic.”