Image source, Parliament TV

Christine Jardine from the Liberal Democrats is up next.

She asks Keegan to impress on the prime minister that this is a problem of "national scale" and will affect other public buildings.

Jardine also asks Keegan to press the Scottish government on the urgency of the situation.

The education secretary responds by saying the government could go through the responsible bodies, and says that is what they were doing until 2019.

However, she says the government didn't think it was being quick enough, which is why the government started the direct questionnaire and surveying programme.

Keegan adds "sometimes it's right to take direct approach".

Dame Diana Johnson says that the capital budgets this year will be raided to pay for the "government's failure and incompetence over the last 13 years in maintaining and rebuilding our schools".

She asks what will happen to schools like Hall Road in her constituency that "desperately needs a rebuild."

Johnson then adds: "If the minister is really short of cash in her department, perhaps one option might be to bring in a swear box."

She is met with cheers and jeers from the Commons.

Keegan responds, thanking Johnson for her joke and adds "as a Scouser I have a bit of a high bar."

Conservative MP Julian Lewis thanks officials for what he says was their prompt response to the issue, praising in particular the work of Baroness Barran.

He adds that the education department was also “proactive” in resending the questionnaire to schools.

Keegan says her department took action quickly, and also thanks Barran for her work, adding that the surveys are important “so we know where RAAC is in our schools”.

Ben Bradshaw asks whether Rishi Sunak's decision as chancellor to cut the school budget was factored on the fact that "neither he nor most of the Conservative cabinet actually use state schools for their own children."

It's "not correct" that the size of the school rebuilding programme has been cut in recent years, Keegan responds.

She asserts the budget is the same level as announced in 2020.

Image source, Parliament TV

Priti Patel mentions the schools affected in her constituency. She says: "They've got mitigations underway" and thanks Essex County Council for their "leadership."

Patel mentions that promises have been made on capital costs, but asks: "Will there be support for revenue impact, travel impact, switching to remote learning and children with special educational needs?"

She adds: "Will the case workers be prepared to work with MPs?" And "What is the role of Ofsted with this and the impact on exams?"

Keegan responds by saying that with revenue the department will honour it on a case-by-case basis.

"Case workers are focused on working with the schools and not everybody is as far ahead as others. We've opened a hotline for members of Parliament."

Keegan explains that the hotline will be open with extended hours over the weekend and all through the week.

The SNP's education spokesperson Carol Monaghan asks Keegan for "clarity" on her comments about spending whatever it takes to sort the problem.

Monaghan says Treasury sources have admitted there is "no new money" to pay for the work, but cash instead will come out of the Department of Education's existing capital budget.

She also asks if Keegan can confirm there's going to be additional funding for devolved administrations to carry out remedial work.

Keegan responds by saying "every year we get capital budgets" and we are investing significantly in our schools.

She says when "we come to the next phase", which is the "rebuilding of our schools, we have some allocations".

Image source, Parliament TV

Maria Miller, Conservative MP for Basingstoke, says the education department has been speaking with schools “for years” about how to tackle the issue.

She asks the education secretary how quickly schools suspected of having RAAC will be dealt with.

Keegan says 95% of schools have responded to the government, but that she is concerned about the 5% of schools that haven’t.

She adds that schools with suspected cases will be surveyed in the next few weeks.

Image source, House of Commons

Labour's shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson is now on her feet.

She says how we got here is a "sorry state".

She says the safety of children in schools should be our highest priority.

Phillipson says politicians should be able to take "collective responsibility" and describes the situation as an "utter shambles".

Keegan adds that officials have worked closely with experts on the issue and that the government’s “priority is for every child across the UK to go to school”.

She adds that she has been “engaging urgently” with devolved nations to understand the scale of the issue in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

She ends by reiterating that the government has taken an “extremely cautious approach” but that she believes “it is the right thing to do when it comes to the safety of children”.

Speaking about the collapses of the RAAC concrete that pushed the government to act, Keegan says that in one case, the concrete plank that failed remained resting on a steel beam so it could be investigated.

DFE engineers determined that the panel affected "would have been previously rated as non-critical", she says.

Therefore the government made "the difficult decision" to change its guidance so that areas previously deemed to contain non-critical RAAC are now being closed, she says.

She says in the education estate there are 22,000 settings with over 64,000 individual blocks says Keegan, and monitoring them all is "very difficult" to do.

But she says that the DfE has been working with "some of the best engineers" on the issue.

Keegan explains that professional advice and how to manage risks on RAAC has evolved over time.

She says the Education Department alerted the government about RAAC in 2018.

She adds: "In 2021 we issued a guide how to identify RAAC. In 2022 we decided to take a more direct approach with a questionnaire to responsible bodies to ask them to identify if they had RAAC."

Keegan said 95% of bodies submitted responses.

She said they started a programme were the DfE sent a professional surveyor that would "Only take buildings out of use for critical cases."

However Keegan explains that a new approach helped discover three new cases over this summer.

Keegan continues by saying each school has dedicated caseworkers to implement mitigation plans.

In terms of funding, Keegan says the government will spend whatever it takes to keep kids safe, and there will be alternative classroom space where necessary

“Where schools face additional costs, plans will be put in place to provide support”, she says.

The education secretary confirms the government will publish a list of 156 schools with confirmed high-risk RAAC this week, with details of "mitigations in place".

She says this information will then be updated, including what the impact on pupils has been.

Keegan adds that the “vast majority” of schools will be unaffected, and that children should attend schools as normal.

“We are doing everything in our power to minimise remote learning”, she adds.

Keegan says that the government is taking a "deliberately cautious approach" to prioritising children's safety.

All the schools that are suspected to have RAAC will be surveyed "within a matter of weeks", she says, and many within the next few days.

Around two-thirds of surveyed schools do not have RAAC, she says.

Image source, House of Commons

Referring to the disruption and recent cases, Keegan explains that she believes "100% that this is the right thing to do" and why they've "taken rapid steps to support schools and colleges."

Keegan adds that the vast majority of schools are unaffected by RAAC and that 52 schools and colleges have mitigations in place.

She adds: "Last week we advised a further 104 schools with RAAC to take spaces out of use if they've not already done so.

“The majority remain open for face to face learning and only a small part of each site is affected.”

The education secretary is on her feet now in the Commons and starts off by saying she wants to make a statement about the steps her department is taking over RAAC.

Gillian Keegan continues by saying "nothing is more important than the safety of children and staff".

She says the government has taken immediate action where there are risks.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan will be speaking in the House of Commons shortly.

You can watch her statement live by pressing Play at the top of this page.

Stay with us as we bring you all the latest updates on what she says.

Image source, PA Media

Here's a brief recap of how the schools concrete issue has unfolded over the last five days.

Thursday

​​Schools in England must close buildings due to possible concrete collapses, the government announces. Over 100 schools need to shut problem areas, it adds.

​​Friday

​​A minister says the government will cover costs for schools needing temporary accommodation. The devolved administrations launch RAAC assessments.

​​Saturday

​​“Eye-watering” sums are being spent on RAAC issues in hospitals, an MP warns. Labour calls for an "urgent audit", the Lib Dems want Cobra to convene.

​​Sunday

​​The chancellor promises to spend "what it takes" to protect schools.

​​Monday

PM Rishi Sunak says the government acted "as swiftly as possible"; the Education Secretary Gillian Keegan says 104 schools were affected.

The headteacher of Parks Primary School in Leicester, Caroline Evans, tells the BBC she cried when she found out that her school was one of those at risk from crumbling RAAC concrete.

"Our school is a massive family and all I could think about is we are going to be split up," she says, and adds that the issue has been the "hardest thing I've had to deal with".

In May this year, the school had to relocate several classes and borrow rooms from other institutions after the discovery of RAAC.

Take a look inside the primary school in this short 80 second video:

David Wallace Lockhart
BBC Scotland Political Correspondent

It feels like there’s been a different level of reaction to the presence of RAAC in schools north and south of the border.

The Scottish government has confirmed that 35 schools with RAAC have been identified in Scotland.

I understand ministers don’t expect that figure to rise significantly.

There certainly isn’t a similar level of school closures or disruption here.

Some in the Scottish Government are struggling to understand why there appears to be such extensive closures of schools in England, but not other public sector buildings.

While there may have to be some remedial work, it doesn’t feel like the Scottish Government is bracing itself for widespread closures when it comes to RAAC.

Though it’s worth pointing out that work is still ongoing to fully understand the RAAC picture in Scotland.