Former top civil servant at the Department for Education laid blame at Prime Minister's door
According to the NAO figures, the actual spend on the DfE’s rebuilding programme in 2019-20 was £765m a year. However, by 2020-21, when Mr Sunak was chancellor, the spending fell to £560m it then dropped again in 2021-22 to £416m before rising marginally to £450m in 2022-23.
Labour has claimed it represents a cumulative cut to school rebuilding spending of £869m since 2019-20, when comparing the annual capital spend to the £765m set in 2019-20 every single year. A more accurate reflection of the fall in spending, which backs up Mr Slater’s comments on Monday morning, is that the budget to carry out rebuilding work on schools fell by 41 per cent under Mr Sunak’s watch from 2019-20 to 2021-22, from £765m to £416m.
It means that while government borrowing and spending increased dramatically over this period as a result of the pandemic, the Treasury took the decision to cut capital spending on schools by more than 40 per cent despite significant concerns over safety.
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