Starmer: Sunak’s champagne Tories put bubbly tax cut ahead of bubbly concrete

Labour leader criticises prime minister’s ‘choices’

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Keir Starmer has accused Rishi Sunak of putting champagne drinkers ahead of school safety by cutting the budget for rebuilding classrooms while slashing duty on bubbly.

Ahead of a showdown with the prime minister in the Commons later the Labour leader highlighted Mr Sunak's decision to slash investment in the school estate while reducing duty on sparkling wine.

"These are choices. [Sunak] didn’t say, ‘Well, I can’t do that in relation to champagne’. He took a choice to cut the rate in relation to champagne and not to sign off the necessary funding for school," Sir Keir told BBC News.

Labour is calling for the government to release details of the schools affected by Raac concrete, and about what Mr Sunak was told about the dangers of not acting in 2021 when he was chancellor.

Treasury budget documents estimate that the multi-year cost of the champagne tax cut by 2026-27 would total £155 million – similar to a £150 million estimate of the funds needed to make the school estate safe from collapse.

Sir Keir and Mr Sunak will face off at prime minister's questions later on Wednesday, in the first such session since Westminster returned from its summer break this week.

"He took a decision in 2021," the opposition leader said.

"I think the least that we're entitled to is to know what risks were pointed out to him in 2021 when the Prime Minister took those decisions, and an answer from him as to why he didn't allow that funding to go forward."

Schools, hospitals, courts and the defence estate are among public buildings thought to be affected by failures to renew potentially dangerous reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac).

The government is still scrambling to find out how many public buildings could be affected – but has no plans to tell the public where they are, No 10 has indicated.

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The prime minister chaired a meeting on the issue on Monday, although the work is being led by the Cabinet Office minister Jeremy Quin.

But while a full list of schools impacted will be released later this week after days of mounting pressure, Downing Street said it was “not aware” of plans to make public the full list of all buildings affected.

It comes after The Independent revealed that education secretary Gillian Keegan told schools to "get off their backsides" to help fix the concrete crisis, a day after she was caught on a hot mic suggesting her response deserved praise.