Baroness Boycott (CB)

My Lords, my Amendment 243 deals with climate mitigation and adaptation. It would make statutory existing government guidance that new school buildings must be both net zero in operation and adapted to 2 degrees of warming, and would require the Government to produce a safe and resilient schools plan, laying out how existing school buildings would meet these targets. One issue is that the Government do not seem to know the scale of the problem—for instance, the department does not hold information about the amount of lost learning time due to flooding. We have done a bit of research on the impact of extreme weather recently. Storm Chandra in late January caused 80 schools to close or partially close in Devon, Dorset and Somerset. Over 400 schools closed in Northern Ireland on 27 January due to weather, and Storm Goretti caused at least 278 schools in northern Scotland to close. That adds up to hundreds of lost school days across the UK. Of course we expect some of this—we cannot get around the snow—but my point is that weather events are increasing, and we could risk losing a lot of learning days, not to mention the soggy books and school equipment that are left behind. The UK has no statutory reporting system, and what data exists is only at the local authority level; it is primarily for parents, not for anything strategic. Can the Minister commit that the department will start to track this centrally so that we have some kind of usable data? The wider issue is that we lack a plan for how to deal with what is coming down the road. Everyone knows that climate change is getting worse, and we need a climate adaptation plan for schools. It needs to come from central government, otherwise we risk creating a multitiered system, where some schools do better and some do not. Probably, almost inevitably, it will be the poorest schools that end up being closed when there is a bad flooding event. We have a template to follow; a few years ago, the Mayor of London commissioned a report which tailored plans for 60 schools. Many of the solutions were very simple, such as flood doors, shading and ventilation windows, which could be deployed widely and cheaply. The London report found that 93% of schools in the capital reported overheating as an issue, 78% said that it had a significant impact on learning and 43% experienced it multiple times or continuously through the summer term. Yes, London is relatively dry or hot and there will be different issues, largely flooding, in areas like the West Country. But the climate science shows that we are getting hotter summers and wetter winters, and that will only increase. I know that there will be costs but, as with all things connected to our changing weather system, it is much cheaper to act now than later. As a starting point, will the Minister consider asking schools about this as part of annual surveys, and commit that the department will assess any plans that schools have made and issue general overall guidance on what to do? On the basis of these bits of information, I suspect that it will become abundantly clear that what we need is a Department for Education led safe and resilient schools plan.