Unions are ‘ breathing fear into parents’

TEACHING unions were branded ‘utterly disgraceful’ by MPs yesterday as leaders refused to back a September return for all pupils.

Union bosses were accused of trying to ‘breathe fear’ into parents by portraying schools as ‘death traps’, during an education select committee hearing.

Robert Halfon, chairman of the committee, asked: ‘Why is it that children can have access to Primark over the next few months but many of them won’t have access to schools according to your risk assessments?’

Dr Mary Bousted – joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU) – again refused

to commit to backing a full reopening in September.

And Julie McCulloch from the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said it was also ‘not able’ to support a reopening.

Dr Bousted told MPs: ‘We will support a full school reopening when it is safe.’ Her union has been accused of trying to use the crisis as leverage to achieve wider political aims. She claimed a full reopening in September was impossible due to social distancing rules.

Tory MP and former teacher Jonathan Gullis told union leaders that their warnings about opening schools were ‘utterly disgraceful’ and not based on science.

And Unity Howard, director of the New Schools Network, told MPs that head teachers had been left ‘on the brink of tears’ by the ‘burden’ of trade union interference in reopening schools.

At Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, Boris Johnson repeatedly challenged the Labour Party to back his return to school plan. But Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer did not give a clear answer on whether his party believed it was safe to go back to school.