Tory MPs back parents in call to reopen UK schools

London

The UK government faced growing pressure on Monday to detail a strategy to reopen schools in England, following a backlash from lawmakers about reports that they could remain closed for months.

A dozen MPs from Prime Minister Boris Johnson's ruling Conservatives have warned publicly that pupils risk becoming the pandemic's "forgotten victims", and demanded that schools fully reopen sooner.

The group - which includes former Cabinet minister Esther McVey and Graham Brady, head of an influential committee of Conservative lawmakers - backed a parents' pressure group campaign on the issue.

"We need to get our children learning again - with clarity from @educationgovuk and an education routemap out of the coronavirus," Conservative MP Rob Halfon, chairman of Parliament's watchdog education committee, said on Twitter. "The engine of government should be directed towards opening our schools. We face an epidemic of educational poverty and mental health otherwise."

However, his bid to force a government statement on the issue in Parliament on Monday failed after House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle opted against selecting his urgent question on the issue.

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Education Secretary Gavin Williamson is widely expected to address the matter later this week, and confirm that students will not return to classrooms after the mid-February half-term break as ministers had once hoped.

Mr Johnson closed schools to all but the children of key workers this month as Covid-19 infections surged across the country, largely due to the emergence of a more contagious virus variant in recent months.

The dramatic spike in cases through December has led to unprecedented levels of hospitalisations and fatalities from coronavirus, with Britain now approaching 100,000 deaths during the pandemic.

Although the number of new cases has begun to fall this month, Health Secretary Matt Hancock on Sunday declined to guarantee that schools would be back in session by Easter in early April, noting that infection rates would need to come down further.

The UK government sets education policy in England. The sector is handled by the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where schools have also been shut.

Meanwhile, the government is also being urged to beef up its borders policy amid fears other new virus strains could be imported.

Ministers have for weeks been mulling whether to require all incoming travellers to isolate in hotels, and a decision is expected within days.

Earlier this month, the UK scrapped its "travel corridors" from countries with lower caseloads following the emergence of new variants, and now asks arrivals to show negative Covid-19 tests and then self-isolate. AFP