“A recent Health and Safety Executive report into non-local authority schools including academies and free schools has revealed that 29 per cent of 153 schools inspected were failing to properly manage the asbestos in their buildings.  

They have received improvement notices and written advice for things such as failing to carry out asbestos assessments, having no written asbestos management plan or failing to train maintenance staff.  

There are 28,000 schools in this country and three-quarters of them still have asbestos in their building fabric. 

The committee on carcinogenicity looked at the risks posed by asbestos in schools and concluded that a child aged five years is five times more likely to contract the deadly mesothelioma than an adult aged 30 years. 

A national Sunday newspaper recently investigated this issue, and had a lengthy feature ready to be published but pulled it at the last minute. 

The Morning Star has put the story of asbestos in schools on its front page in the past.  

I support the Morning Star because it is the only newspaper prepared to uncover or reveal issues like this which the government would prefer the general public not to know about.”

Julie Winn 

Unite delegate north-east, Humber & Yorks

Chair of the Joint Union Asbestos Committee