Rishi Sunak rejected a bid for 200 schools a year to be rebuilt when he was chancellor, a Tory minister has revealed.
Nick Gibb said Sunak would only give the green light for 50 schools to be included in the government’s rebuilding programme.
His comments pile further pressure on the prime minister over the crumbling concrete scandal.
More than 100 schools in England have so far been forced to partially or completely close because of the unsafe concrete - known as RAAC - in their construction.
Gibb told Sky News this morning that in 2021, when Sunak was chancellor, the department for education put in a bid to the Treasury for funding to rebuild or refurbish 200 schools a year.
The schools minister said: “We put in a bid for 200, but what Rishi agreed to was to continue the rebuilding programme at 50 a year, consistent with what we’ve been doing since we came into office.
“Fifty school buildings a year is what the system can cope with, and of course we put in a bid for 200, but the Treasury then has to compare that bid with all the other priorities right across Whitehall.”
His damning comments came a day after Jonathan Slater, the former top civil servant at the Department for Education, said Sunak had halved the number of schools in the rebuilding programme when he was chancellor.
Sunak said yesterday that more than 1,000 schools could end up being affected by the crisis.