Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the government Motion and hope that this House will follow the lead of the other place and support it this evening.

I confess that this is the second speech I wrote for this afternoon’s debate; the first one was written before I took the basement tour. I cannot compare it with what the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, saw; I can say only that it alarmed me. My first speech was rather academic, but I commend the basement tour to anyone who is in any doubt that this Motion is the right thing to do. Forget about Guy Fawkes—think about burst boilers, random electric fires, routine and constant maintenance and equipment failures, and floods. Frankly, I am amazed that this building functions as well as it does. I am even more convinced that we are living on borrowed time. There are limits to how much risk can be managed, even by the expertise of the wonderful staff who work on the Parliamentary Estate to keep us safe.

I understand that feelings run high, and the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, is surely part of that. I believe that the options have been fully and exhaustively explored and that the Motion is correct and we should follow it. However, I understand that this is part of how Parliament has always felt about this building. I remind your Lordships that, between 1834 and 1870, there were no fewer than 100 parliamentary inquiries into this building as it was being built. We are not quite of that order, but we have form on this.

This leads me to explain why it is such a challenging building. I had something to do with the rebuilding of King’s Cross, and I am afraid there is no comparison. The fact is that this was and remains a revolutionary building in every respect. Until recently it has survived all the tests of time. It was capable of being built this way due to the Industrial Revolution, and it is now accommodating the fourth industrial revolution. It was one of the greatest medieval buildings of Europe, and under the genius of Barry and Pugin it became a Victorian masterpiece, not just of design but of engineering, on a scale never before entertained, innovative as much for its frankly bizarre ventilation system as for the industrial use of stained glass throughout the building. It has proved flexible enough to house a small town, and has withstood wartime bombing. Over that period, it has become a visual shorthand for the big ideas around democracy that have shaped our nation and which are under our feet and over our heads: Church and state; law and government; monarchy and people; and today we remember in particular power, government and the representation of women.

As a world heritage site, it matters as much to the rest of the world as it does to us. But what makes it almost unique is that, unlike much of our physical heritage, so much of which has been lost or compromised, not least by fire, this building has not only survived but is still doing the job it was intended to do. You can say that about very few buildings in this country. But more than that, it is more open, better understood and more democratic than it has ever been in its history. Last year, we welcomed over 100,000 children, for example, among 1 million visitors. Our ambition should be not merely that we put it into their hands fit for the future but that, in doing so, we inspire and energise our whole democratic tradition.

We can do that only if we support the Government’s Motion tonight and agree to a full and timely decant, with all the right processes in place. The evidence—there is no point in rehearsing it—is consistent, expert, thorough and inescapable. This building has to have a radical restoration. The electrical and mechanical infrastructure needs to be stripped out completely and replaced; that is three-quarters of the cost. The fragile fabric and decoration of the House must be made safe and repaired by expert hands; otherwise, it will be lost for ever. The only way this can all be done safely, effectively and at cost-benefit is if we move out.

Millions has been spent on aggressive maintenance and replacing obsolete equipment over the past 20 years, which is done at night or when we are not here. That has been the only way the basic services have been kept going. Every new technology and new development has required more cabling—layer after layer. I suggest that noble Lords go to the basement to see the carbon fibre cables laid alongside the electricity cables, which are laid alongside the gas pipes and the water pipes. They should look at the 95 ventilation shafts which house them—shafts which were designed to facilitate the flow of clean air but are absolutely designed to accelerate fire. The sewage plant dates from the building of Bazalgette’s great sewer in the mid-19th century. I can certainly recommend that to noble Lords, although I would not recommend that they stay very long.

Much has been done to reduce risk—£72 million was spent on reducing the risk of steam, for example. However, the point is that, no matter how hard our engineers work in the coming years, they will only ever be able to keep pace with and not reduce risk. The whole system is alert for alarms. We were told that there are 120 routine alarms a day. The building has no fewer than 117 plant rooms; Buckingham Palace has only eight. Only five of our plant rooms have been modernised. That is the scale of the problem, and it comes inevitably from the fact that this is a single building with a single electricity system, a single water system and a single sewage system with no compartmentalisation. When pipes burst at this end of the building, the problem occurs at the other end. The risk of fire is not just from cabling; it is from the random electric fires that people put on in remote parts of the building.

For goodness’ sake, let us learn from history. The history of this building is written in fire. In 1512, Henry VIII abandoned it after a conflagration, and we know what happened after 1834. Last year, there were 12 fires. I am sorry, but the idea that the whole electric and mechanical infrastructure could be ripped out and asbestos contained while services continue to function somewhere in this building and we face minor inconvenience is nonsense.

The timetable to get things done before we can move out is long, but it involves a necessary process. However, the danger is that, although enough has been done to manage risk until 2020, the situation beyond then is more unpredictable. The other risk is that, if English Heritage, Historic England and UNESCO look at this building, one will say that it is a building at risk and another will say that it no longer merits its world heritage status. That is not an idle threat; both possibilities are very much under review.

This debate is about restoration and renewal. Let us concentrate on the future as well as on the past. Let us look to conserve the archaeology, the antiquities, the art and the fabric, but let us also commit to involving the whole country in a process of democratic renewal. The other place has spoken; I think we should listen; and I hope that that is what the House decides to do tonight.