Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 22nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, I want to make some brief comments. I start by reminding noble Lords that the shadow sponsor body sets six key strategic priorities in its publication about restoration and renewal produced in the spring—I know that everyone will have read it avidly and memorised it. The very first point in the very first block of priorities concerns fire—the risk of fire in the restored Palace and also during the restoration. Therefore, it is very much in the minds of the sponsor body, as your Lordships would expect.

The noble Lord’s point about evacuation was very interesting. My initial thought was that it really was not anything to do with the shadow sponsor body. It is an operational matter and something that we ought to do. Most of us, ever since being at school, have experienced fire drills. I thought I would be saying that this was a matter for the House, but the noble Lord made a more fundamental point about how much we do not know about how people use this place. One thing that the shadow sponsor body has found in its work is that people do not necessarily react as you would expect them to, so it is a very real point. However, I stand by my initial view that it is for the House authorities and not the shadow sponsor body to sort out the evacuation drill.

I hope that the noble Lord wants not to put on the face of the Bill a specific and technical response to fire but, rather, to probe whether we are taking it seriously. Having said that I am not speaking on behalf of the sponsor body, I know that we would be very keen to work with the noble Lord on this matter. Your Lordships will be aware that we have done a lot of work with Members on disability access issues, for example, and will be doing so on other matters, so I am very happy to talk to him about that.

His question about fire and heritage gives rise to a fundamental point, which is that noble Lords have many different priorities. Some say that heritage takes precedence and others say that accessibility does. I think that making something a number one priority above everything else on the face of the Bill would probably make life quite difficult later. There will be a point when the House has to make has to make these decisions. The shadow sponsor body, working with the designers, will put forward a whole range of propositions but it will be for the House to work through what it chooses to prioritise. Therefore, putting things on the face of the Bill that constrain that prioritisation could mean that Parliament has fewer choices when it comes to make a decision.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

I do not want to comment on this from the point of view of a member of the sponsor body, because I certainly am not. I was a member of the Joint Committee that reviewed the legislation but I am not speaking from that point of view either. I am speaking as somebody who, in his professional life before entering the world of politics, supervised construction projects. Indeed, I was supervising a project when the people adapting the sprinkler system with welding equipment set fire to the roof and the building burned down. Therefore, I am very well apprised of the risks and I think that the noble Lord has done us all a favour by raising them in the way that he has.

I want to comment in particular on the specific technical solution that the noble Lord has put forward. I think he will recognise that this project’s construction phase will last for at least another 10 and probably 15 years. Mist sprinkling had not even been invented 10 or 15 years ago, so we need to be very well aware that what technology will deliver now might be completely different from what it is appropriate to deliver later. Therefore, I very much hope that he will make allowances for the specific point that my noble friend has raised and ensure that, whatever discussions take place, we do not lock ourselves into a technical solution that becomes outdated and irrelevant.

Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill

Lord Stunell Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 8th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I speak as a member of the Joint Committee that looked at the draft Bill and produced the report which is in front of your Lordships as background to this debate. The report had a number of practical recommendations for implementation, and I was very pleased indeed to hear from the Minister in her introduction the way in which many of those recommendations were adopted in the House of Commons, or will be subject to further refinement and, we hope, adoption in the House of Lords at a later stage.

We have had an excellent debate with many fine contributions. I hope the Minister will find the opportunity to respond to many of the points made, if not in this debate, at least subsequently, because many drew out the tensions between different, quite legitimate objectives in delivering restoration and renewal. One thing that will happen when we decant is that the decanted accommodation will be better than the accommodation we are in now, and it is completely unrealistic to expect us, in eight, 10 or 15 years’ time, to move back into a building with lower standards than the temporary accommodation. I mention that particularly in relation to deafness. I am sure we will be able to hear in every room in the temporary accommodation, which is certainly not true here—I speak as someone who is a serial complainer about that.

What is really important and valuable from this debate is that there is universal acceptance that doing nothing, or business as usual, is not possible. There is an unacceptably high risk and urgent action is essential. The disastrous Notre Dame fire has certainly spurred everybody into action. It may be that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, disagrees, but a 24-hour fire safety team is neither normal nor cheap—nor is it guaranteed to produce 100% success.

The Bill is very welcome: indeed, it is overdue. In fact, the timeline so far has already been dangerously extended, as a number of speakers in this debate have pointed out. It has been characterised by short outbreaks of action and then prolonged periods of frustrating delay. The cause of those delays has not been explained or explored, particularly in this debate, but, bearing in mind that each delay came at a time when the ball was in the Government’s court, one might surmise that it was something to do with reluctance at the highest level to commit to a project which, however essential and urgent, has very few friends outside this building and none at all in the print media.

It might be thought that a year’s delay at this stage is neither here nor there. It is going to take another 16 years anyway, so what is another few months at the beginning? Actually, it has not been without cost—the cost of carrying the risks of catastrophic failure forward for another 12 months while construction costs have also risen by 1% more than either RPI or CPI, depending on which of those indices the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, would like us to use.

Simply having that delay and looking at enhanced construction costs compared to rising tax revenue and so on has added £40 million to the cost of the £4 billion project. That is not even factoring in extending 24-hour fire cover costs for a further year. That is bad enough, but suppose that government uncertainty and reluctance had come during the actual construction period. For the purposes of illustration, a £4 billion project lasting eight years would need spending at £500 million a year. A year’s delay in decision-making would then cost the thick end of £300 million, arising from people standing around waiting for decisions and from paying overtime to catch up, not to mention extra plant hire, cranes and warehouse space.

We should certainly learn from Crossrail. Originally, we all said that this was going to be like the Olympics and Crossrail; we have stopped saying that and now only say it will be like the Olympics. Crossrail, once seen as a glowing example of success, is now an awful warning of costs and delay.

That brings me to one key area where the Joint Committee came to a different view from the Government about how this unique, massive and difficult project should be managed. The Bill is all about governance: not what should be done, how much should be done or even when it should be done, but by whom it should be commissioned and signed off. The Joint Committee considered the draft Bill very carefully in that respect. Our recommendations were framed to build a decision-making structure that would minimise delays and wasted effort. That is why we recommended that the new structure recognise reality and make transparent who exactly will decide if, when and how this project goes ahead.

That brings me to recommendation 11 in our report, which I think nobody else in the debate so far has mentioned:

“Parliament has determined that the Treasury should be subordinate to Parliament … in accepting or rejecting the costs of the project … However, we do not consider that this on its own will provide sufficient political buy-in from the Treasury over the course of this long project”.


That seems pretty clear, and it is sad that the Government feel that they do not want to accept that recommendation. Whatever the value of all the different governance procedures—no doubt there will be much discussion of them in Parliament, as well as rows and inquiries—that rather misses the point that, before that can happen and any estimate can be laid by the estimates commission, it must,

“have regard to any advice given by the Treasury”.

In Schedule 4 to the Bill, paragraphs 3(5)(a) and 3(5)(b) deal with phase one; paragraphs 6(5)(a) and 6(5)(b) deal with the transition year; paragraphs 8(5)(a) and 8(5)(b) deal with phase two. In a 15-clause Bill, three of the clauses are instructing everybody to have regard to any advice given by the Treasury.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Why does the noble Lord think that the Treasury will agree to Parliament making this decision without its approval—I see the Leader of the House is not listening—given that I keep getting told that a much more modest proposal that I have been suggesting for a number of years is subject to approval by the Treasury and must be within a particular envelope? Either this Parliament makes decisions about expenditure or it does not. The noble Lord is saying that it will make decisions about billions of pounds, when it cannot make decisions about millions.

[Lord Stunell]

The noble Lord exactly anticipates the point I am coming to. If this goes ahead unamended, it is a recipe for the hidden hand to cause delay and wasted effort. Those were the points I was about to make.

The Joint Committee recommended that a Treasury Minister sit on the sponsor body, which will sign off the brief for the delivery authority. That is when the Treasury input is needed, not after a year’s work of design and procurement has been done, and perhaps wasted, when the estimates commission consults the Treasury, in accordance with paragraphs 3, 5 and 8, and is obliged to reject what comes to it. I say “obliged”, because if you must “have regard” to something, that leaves very little room to ignore the advice you receive.

There is a weakness in accountability here, but not a weakness of the designers, contractors, delivery authority or sponsor board. Those accountabilities are in the main clear and transparent, and very welcome for that. The weakness is in the accountability of the Government and the lack of any transparency in their input. I describe it as their “input” into the process but it is much more likely to be their extraction from it, because I do not believe that the Treasury would urge anyone to spend the money faster. However, their participation in the process is not transparent, and that weakness will lead to delay, waste and extra costs. How much better and simpler would it be to have the Treasury at the front end rather than the back end of the process?

It may be said that there is no problem because the Government will accept the point that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is so dubious about them accepting. However, we know that transparency influences the progress of the project, and that endless delays and costs involve money. When there was no transparency, we did not know, for instance, why it was taking so long for previous stages of this process to reach the House and for decisions to be taken. When those delays cannot be attributed and chased, they accumulate. I can well understand that the Government have no wish at all to be fingered by this problem; equally, we have to understand its cost. With costs running at over £500 million a year, I can well see that Ministers will be hesitant. That is five schools-worth a year, and the temptation will be to stop, pull back and slow down. That is bad and expensive news at any stage of a big project, but it is absolutely destructive when it is in full flow. Let us get that interference at the front level, and minimise the delay, the wasted design time, the costs and the aborted procurement. I hope we can come back to that key issue in Committee.

I concur with practically every speaker in this debate in saying that this is a good, sound Bill. It needs to go ahead, and quickly, and we need to make sure that any flaws regarding accountability that may be built into it are dealt with before it leaves your Lordships’ House.

Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal

Lord Stunell Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to contribute to this debate and to follow the noble Baroness. I certainly echo her views and feelings about the building that we occupy.

I came into politics having spent 20 years in the construction industry. Some of that was on refurbishment work, some on new work, some with good clients, some with bad. Whether it is better or worse to be a politician than working in the construction industry is perhaps for others to say.

I have been on the obligatory tour of the basement, as well. As someone who came to it with a semi-professional eye, I would say that in almost any other public building where a tour like that was conducted, you would have inspectors, enforcement notices and the whole corporate world of regulation dropping on your head. We are getting away with it in the regulatory sense as well the risk sense.

There is a big risk. There is a risk of fire, from asbestos and from clashing services. They have all been well set out. Of course, there is a risk because so many of the repairs and alterations have been piecemeal, which involved lost opportunities, additional costs and more delays and difficulties for users of the building. Every delay to going ahead with this project—which I am enthusiastically in favour of—increases the risk and will increase the cost.

I must say that the “stay put and do it round us” option is in every way the worst. It gives the ultimate delay. I liked one finding of the joint report, which said that the likely time for a stay-put option is 32 years to completion, by which time you would have to renew the mechanical and electrical equipment put in at the beginning. In other words, that option would be like the Forth Bridge, and I hope that we will dismiss that without too much further consideration.

It is worth thinking about the fact that if we had started in good time on a 32-year period of renovation of this place, we would have started in 1985 and it would be finishing this year. I call to mind the point made, in particular, by the noble Lord, Lord Maude, about building in obsolescence. At that time, there was no web, no IT. What would have been started in 1985 would have been totally inappropriate by the time we got here. There are good reasons for doing it quickly and thoroughly, and I hope I have just sketched a couple of them.

We work in a building which is a masterpiece, but it is worth remembering that it was every bit as controversial as Portcullis House when it was built—I remember some of that, as I arrived in this place in 1997. Its cost, design, appearance and performance were controversial from the very beginning. The heating system never worked, and it is because of that that we have those huge horizontal ducts and vertical risers. Subsequently, no one has ever had to bother about finding anywhere for stuff to run: just stick it in those disused ducts and risers. We have been living on the borrowed capital of a failed heating system for 150 years, and now we have filled them up. We have got to the point where we have to do something about it and take something out of those ducts and risers for safety, cost and performance reasons. Ever since, those ducts and risers have been getting fuller and fuller and no one has ever needed to take anything out because there was always space. There are three generations of electric wiring, at least two generations of telephony and, I think, two generations of IT equipment, quite apart from the steam pipes, and so on.

The maintenance regime has been necessarily constrained by cost, because neither House has at any time wanted to spend a penny more than it believed it could get away with, so maintenance has lagged further and further behind. There are pressures of time. Noble Lords have said, “Let us get rid of the September recall period”. Again, the Joint Committee reported on the number of times that there has been a recall, most recently following the tragic death of Jo Cox. Who is to say that the convenience of this House and a maintenance programme should take precedence over the necessary democratic business of this House and that House at a time of recall? Much of the maintenance has been just in time or, sometimes, just too late, and there is an overwhelming case to tackle the backlog, update the services, modernise the facilities and avoid disaster.

I also want to pick up the positive points which have been made. We should have a building that is to the highest standards that can be achieved in the country —in the world, even—setting high standards for heritage, high standards of safety and high standards for the staff and those who work in the building. There are 14,000 pass holders; we are but 800-odd of those 14,000. We should deliver a world-class, 21st century Parliament.

We should be talking about the how and the when, not the if, the maybe and, “Can we put it off any more?”. We have certainly wasted time. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, pointed out that we have wasted 10 years thanks to us not listening to him in the first place. In any case, since the Joint Committee reported, time has been slipping. We were talking about a 2020 start. We now seem to be talking about a 2023 start. A Parliamentary Question was answered by the Minister last month to say that the earliest possible time we could be decanted would be 2025—seven years from now. I join other noble Lords in saying, “Surely that is an incredibly long period ahead and we can shorten it”.

That brings me briefly to the governance point. One of my former employers was a new town development corporation, which is another version of a delivery authority. That, the Olympic Delivery Authority and the Crossrail authority all provide models which can and have worked and should be used to make this one work. For the long term, we certainly need the sponsor board, we need the delivery authority, and for the immediate future, we need the shadow sponsor board and the shadow delivery authority. That means that we must get the enabling legislation going as soon as possible.

That leaves me with just one or two questions for the Minister. We need from her a commitment to make sure that the legislation is introduced without delay. The Government are very prone to delay on this topic. They have other things on their mind. I will not mention the dreaded word, which has been avoided in this debate, but they have other things on their mind. But this is important, even if it does not look urgent. I ask the Minister to ensure that, when she takes the message back to those drafting the Bill, she asks them to be particularly careful to include a carryover provision. It is entirely foreseeable that there could be an interruption before we get to 2025 created by an unexpected and unintended general election. It would be such a pity if, like last year when an unexpected election provided an excuse to delay this report, something else led to a delay in bringing forward the substantive legislation that we need.

Finally, High Speed 2 has two colleges, committed and dedicated to making sure there is a skilled workforce to deliver that project. If we think apprenticeships and skills training are important national objectives, can we please set up our own college for the renewal and restoration of Parliament? We could then ensure a constant stream of suitable, world-class persons to work on this magnificent and exciting project.