Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for her hard work and sheer determination in getting this Motion on the Order Paper today. I also express, on behalf of the Finance Committee, our delight and, frankly, relief at the outcome of the votes in the Commons last week. Our committee reviewed in detail the evidence about the most effective way to proceed with restoration and renewal, and we were unanimous in our view that the only way was a full decant; it was the best, quickest and most effective way to restore the building for future generations. It is therefore greatly to the credit of the Commons that it took the bold move that it did, and we should not be diverted from its conclusion that we now have to stop debating the options and start a programme of works.

My noble friend Lady Brinton and the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Blencathra, made the point that the refurbished building must be fully compliant with disability access legislation, but we should go much further than the minimum standards. We should make it as easy as possible for every member of the public, regardless of their disability, to come to Parliament and, crucially, to feel happy and comfortable when they come here. Other noble Lords have made some excellent suggestions about a range of issues, including better use and better configuration of space, a two-stage tender process, further examination of the issues around Richmond House and the need to be vigilant about both cost and specification changes—something that our Finance Committee spends a great deal of its time doing.

Before making some suggestions of my own, I will say a few words about the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Naseby. Having visited the basement on a number of occasions, I find his description of it as not “completely up to scratch” something of an understatement. The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, graphically described what the basement looks like so I will add only that there are also 9.5 square metres of mechanical and electrical plant housed in 128 plant rooms, a mile of passages, seven miles of steam pipes, and 250 miles of wiring, which, if laid end to end, would reach from here to Newcastle, and we have absolutely no idea what most of it does. The place has asbestos in almost every nook and cranny, and our fire patrols work tirelessly 24/7 to keep us safe, despite some very substantial challenges.

Therefore, for me partial decant would be the worst of all options. Whichever House stayed in the building would be sharing it with a huge construction site. There would be the danger of flood, fire and asbestos release, almost certainly resulting in evacuations and major disruption on a scale we can hardly imagine. The extensive temporary mechanical and electrical plant that would need to be built prior to stripping out the old systems would be housed in temporary buildings but these would be major buildings, two or three storeys high, and they would have to be secured to the Palace by drilling large holes through the historic stonework. These would fill up most of the courtyards and would present major safety and security challenges. Partial decant would take years to complete and at a huge cost. So for all those reasons I cannot support the amendment.

I will put forward two suggestions that I believe should be considered for the finished product. The first is that we should take the opportunity to open up our amazing Parliamentary Archives to the public. The archives include more than five miles of priceless historic collections dating back to 1497. These are held on behalf of the public and should be accessible to them. The restored Estate should therefore incorporate space to showcase parliamentary history, our precious documents and some of the tremendous range of parliamentary art, a huge amount of which is, of necessity, stored well away from public view.

Secondly, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that we should make better use of parliamentary time by introducing electronic voting. Opposition to this appears to centre around two principal objections. The first is that parliamentarians could hand their voting cards to staff and disappear from Parliament, leaving others to vote on their behalf. The second is that Ministers and Back-Benchers could no longer mix. Making sure that only parliamentarians vote is straightforward. There could be face-recognition booths, discreetly placed around the Estate, using technology very similar to the e-passport gates at all major airports. We would use these to cast our votes securely, and the system would run a face-recognition test each time. The second concern might be addressed by the architecture of the restored building, which should encourage free flows of people and lots of circulation space. But because the opportunity, especially in the Commons, to buttonhole a Minister on a matter of public policy or a constituency issue is indeed valuable, we could also consider a system where the first vote of each day is carried out in the traditional way and electronic voting is used for the rest of the day. These reforms would greatly reduce disruption to meetings across the Estate and release us all for an hour or more a day; 500 or 600 hours a week saved at each end of the building would be a big productivity gain.

I want to say just a few words about how the project should be delivered. As chair of the culture, sport and tourism committee of the London Assembly, my job was to monitor the delivery of the highly successful Olympic and Paralympic Games. This project, too, is on an Olympic scale, and there is much that the sponsor board can learn from the Games. The four key players—the noble Lords, Lord Deighton and Lord Coe, together with David Higgins and John Armitt—played an absolutely crucial role. I have no doubt that without their talent, commitment and hands-on management, the Olympics would never have been the amazing success they were. It is therefore crucial that we find people with the equivalent experience and the commitment to take on this project and make it a success. I, too, would be delighted if the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, could be persuaded to do this.

Given the time pressures, let us resist the urge to bring the restoration work to a halt for two or three weeks every year by returning for a State Opening. State Openings are not cheap. If you take the costs incurred by Parliament, the Royal Household, Westminster City Council and the Metropolitan Police, the overall cost to the public purse cannot be far short of £1 million a year. As we spend taxpayers’ money on preparing this building for future generations, let us save some by ceasing, for a time, this great pomp and ceremony. We could also perhaps continue to save taxpayers’ money, while at the same time preserving the best of tradition, once the Palace is reopened. We might even consider confining the frequency of State Opening to just one a Parliament, immediately after a general election. Each year in between, the Prime Minister could set out annual updates on the Government’s programme in an Oral Statement, with an opportunity for the Commons to vote on its content.

Moving out of this building may be inconvenient and cause upheaval, but failing to do so carries huge risk. Meanwhile, getting on with the job offers very substantial opportunities. Architecture can so often set the tone for the way the occupants of a building operate. This restoration is therefore an opportunity not just to secure the future of the building but to reform Parliament so that it better serves the public. In a few years’ time, I hope we will all inhabit the Palace of Westminster and serve in a Parliament that is more efficient, accessible and transparent. This is an exciting and fascinating project, and today is the start of making it a reality.