NADHIM Zahawi has drawn up plans to stop ultra-cautious health bosses making kids wear masks in schools again, Trending In The News can reveal.
The Education Secretary will block regional Covid boffins overruling Government guidance to ditch the hated face coverings in classrooms.
The requirement to wear masks in classrooms was lifted today ahead of Plan B being entirely dumped next week.
But ministers fear some schools and health bosses will strike out on their own by ordering their pupils to keep wearing them during lessons.
In a letter to MPs today Mr Zahawi said he had told regional directors of public health to clear any rule-tightening with him.
He said: “They will share their plans with me where they are recommending reintroducing face coverings in tightly-focused geographical zones so that we can assess evidence and data to ensure any extra measures are proportionate.”
Tory MP Miriam Cates, who sits on the Commons Education Select Committee, said she was “delighted” with the move.
She told Trending In The News: “Our children have suffered so much during the pandemic – we cannot continue to ask them to endure the discomfort of covering their faces for 6 hours a day for no proven benefit to them or anyone else.”
Gloomy unions bosses are already complaining after Boris Johnson yesterday announced the mask relaxation in schools.
Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the National Education Union, warned: “The danger is we lift restrictions too quickly before the effects of returning to school are clear.”
Paul Whiteman, general secretary for school leaders’ union NAHT said the move would feel “at odds with the current situation on the ground” for many school leaders.
“Mass disruption is ongoing, with high numbers of staff and pupils absent. School leaders are telling us they still feel very much in the eye of the Covid storm.”
Health Secretary Sajid Javid today defended the move, arguing it was proportionate.
He told the BBC: “It is harder to teach children and it will have an impact on their education if they are required to wear face mask at all times in classrooms.”
He added: “Case numbers are falling in every part of the country, we are starting to see hospitalisations falling throughout England, in every area they are stabilised, in most areas they are starting to fall.”
