Restoration and Renewal

Chris Grayling Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds). I agree with many of his remarks on the Division Lobby. The Scottish National party’s thoughts on how we vote in this place are well on the record, and I am glad to see that we are inching ever so slightly into the 21st century.

As I was listening to the illuminating opening speech by the Leader of the House, I felt as if I was having some kind of out-of-body experience, because when the UK economy is in freefall and experiencing a global pandemic, this debate does feel a bit like fiddling while Rome burns. But it takes place in the context of spending choices made here in London, so I wish to offer a few brief thoughts from the perspective of the Scottish National party.

I will start with the issue of costings. Astonishingly, the £4 billion price tag for the restoration and renewal project is only £1 billion less than the total economic package announced for the post-covid recovery. If this project was a shocking waste of taxpayers’ money before the pandemic, it now looks even more hopelessly out of touch because spending billions of pounds upgrading a crumbling palace following a decade of austerity is one of the reasons why the public talk about Westminster being out of touch and not chiming with everyday life. With an entire generation now facing economic armageddon and the deficit set to rise to double what it was during the financial crisis, this decision really could not look more crass.

The reality is that the final price tag will likely be much higher. The National Audit Office has called the £4 billion figure a median figure, and suggested that £6 billion might be more realistic. Looking, for example, at the Government’s handling of the High Speed 2 project, a spiralling price tag is not difficult to imagine. In fact, in February this year the cost of the work that has already started on the Elizabeth Tower was reported to have risen to £18.6 million. Part of the additional cost was the realisation, two years after the project had started, that the job could require a specialist clock expert—something that it took a survey to establish.

The lack of transparency around the scale and cost of the project has further exacerbated public concern. The right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) originally confirmed to the Commons Finance Committee that the full cost of the restoration and the length of the works would not be revealed until 2021, while the deliberately loose language in the Act that vaguely requires the sponsor body to

“have regard to…the need to ensure that the Parliamentary building works represent good value for money”

is an invitation for financial irresponsibility.

The SNP has been consistent on this issue: the Palace of Westminster is falling down. The necessary safety work should be performed as quickly and cost-efficiently as possible. However, put bluntly, Westminster is a hazard risk. We have seen only in recent weeks parts of masonry falling off the building and entrances and exits being closed off. It is not fit for purpose as a modern Parliament. We should not commit to working in a UNESCO world heritage site in perpetuity.

[Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)]

rose—

[David Linden]

I am happy to give way to the right hon. Gentleman who would have been the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee.

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about this being a UNESCO world heritage site. The weakness in his argument is that we have a legal duty to maintain in decent order a UNESCO world heritage site. Surely he is not suggesting that the mother of Parliaments should break the law.

[David Linden]

I take issue with the right hon. Gentleman quoting “the mother of Parliaments”, which is often misquoted in this place. He has put his point on the record; I know he is perhaps having quite a difficult week, so I am glad to have had the opportunity to let him do so.

The SNP has no intention of being around Westminster when this tortuous project finally grinds to its long, eye-wateringly expensive conclusion. We on these Benches urge this place to consider what it is proposing to spend against the current economic backdrop and to think carefully about the message that it sends to the public. Safety assessments have pointed out serious problems with the mechanical and electrical engineering system, and a substantial amount of asbestos is present in the building, where normally thousands of people work every day. The right hon. Member for East Hampshire is right that the fire in Notre Dame in 2019 was an obvious example of the risks that exist with these historic buildings and why they should not be used to host a modern Parliament with an intense working environment.

When the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill passed through this place in 2019, the SNP secured an amendment to ensure that the money would be spent in a way that benefited the whole of the UK. Whatever decision is taken on the next steps, that principle must remain.

Whatever decision is taken, there is now a chance to ensure that we work in a building fit to hold a modern Parliament with modern working practices. The recent pandemic has seen Westminster forced to adopt practices—such as e-voting and virtual proceedings—that are commonplace elsewhere around the world. The cries of protest have been deafening as the Leader of the House desperately tries to drag Parliament back into its 19th century comfort zone. Meanwhile, the Commons Chamber can barely seat half of all MPs and Public Health England needed to look at the Palace of Westminster only once to determine that it was not fit to be used in its current form during a health emergency.

With workplaces throughout the country now required to be covid secure in addition to normal health and safety standards, Westminster can be no exception and must modernise for the benefit of all Members, but most importantly for staff. This could start by having parliamentarians in a Chamber that can seat all Members, rather than being some place over-stuffed to promote conflict. As this debate started, I was reflecting on the number of Tories who have had to move over to the side of the Chamber, because today, bizarrely, the Chamber is hoaching with Tories who are desperate to talk about restoration and renewal. I sometimes wish they would show that level of concern when it comes to, for example, universal credit.

To conclude, while we need to be here, the SNP will prioritise safety and sensible public spending in respect of the Palace of Westminster’s future. However, I very much hope that the Government will reflect on the current financial crisis and health and safety concerns and perhaps refocus their priorities. I can tell the Leader of the House that my constituents are not crying out for eye-watering restoration and renewal costs at Westminster; they have other priorities, and so should this Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)]

It is a particular pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami). It is a bit like a reunion of the Joint Committee today—many of us served on it—

[Mark Tami]

Bring the band back together!

[Chris Grayling]

Absolutely. Many of us served on the Joint Committee back in 2015-16, when we looked at all the issues exhaustively. We considered all the ideas that were submitted to us, some partially credible that did not understand the nuances of this place and some frankly less credible, but I want to make the point to everybody, particularly new Members, that this is not something we have an option about. We have got to do this. When I became Leader of the House in 2015, two things happened in quick succession that brought that home to me, one here and one elsewhere.

First, we nearly had to close the Chamber indefinitely within a few days of my becoming Leader of the House because asbestos was discovered up in the ventilation shafts. If it had become dislodged, or if it were to be dislodged in future, we would have no choice but to immediately close the Chamber indefinitely. What would happen then? The right hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside is right: the building has huge amounts of asbestos. It is a genuine health hazard, which can bite us at any time. That alone is a reason to do the work.

The second thing that happened had nothing to do with Notre-Dame. A few days after I became Leader of the House, Kingsway caught fire. Kingsway is a road and the wiring under it caught fire and burned for days. I advise all those who have not been down into the basement here to do so. Apart from the sewerage system that was mentioned and the asbestos, the basement contains a jumble of wiring, some very old, that could do just the same—catch fire and burn for days.

The House authorities have always said that they can get us all out and save our lives, but they cannot save the building. If we have a serious fire, this building will burn down, in the way that Clandon Park burned down and in the way that Notre-Dame burned down. That would not only be a gross dereliction of our duty as stewards of this building but a national tragedy. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people come to visit what is a world heritage site. It brings people from around the world; it is one of the world’s iconic landmarks. We cannot possibly put ourselves in a position where year after year the risks increase because the wiring gets older and all the systems get older, so we are making it more likely that there will be a devastating fire and this building will be destroyed. We simply cannot do that.

As my successor as Leader of the House rightly said, we all come to this project slightly sceptical. It is a lot of money to spend and it is not something that is going to be universally popular with constituents around the country. However, the more one delves into the subject, the clearer it becomes that we have absolutely no choice but to do this. We looked at all the alternatives. We considered whether we could put a temporary Parliament somewhere else. But even if we just went up to Horse Guards or somewhere like that, could we really, at seven o’clock on an Opposition day, have queues of MPs walking across Whitehall to come and vote? What a security risk that would be—what a target for terrorists. We have to keep Members of Parliament and, in particular, people who work for us, who are often as at risk as we are if something terrible happens, within the secure estate.

That is why and how we came to the conclusion that Richmond House was the best option. It is within the secure estate. It is a building that has flexibilities. The one bit I have a problem with is that I do not buy the argument that it is not possible to put a temporary Chamber into Richmond House without the scale of work that is being considered at the moment. We might need a compromise so that we do not need that period of time to replicate this Chamber exactly. Yes, of course we need to have a debating chamber, and yes, of course it should be consistent with the way that this Chamber works, but it does not have to be like for like—inch for inch, foot for foot identical to here. The Division Lobbies do not have to have exactly the same relationship to the Chamber. We have learned in the past few weeks that we can do things differently, and I buy that argument. We cannot just spend money willy-nilly because it keeps the environment in which we are going to be working close to what we have here now. If it changes a bit, it does not matter.

We cannot keep delaying this decision. I am frustrated that it is now 2020 and I co-chaired the Committee back in 2015—five years ago. This building is five years older. The systems are five years older. We have looked at all these options before. We looked at whether we could move the Commons to the Lords end. Actually, I am not convinced that the lords would vote for that if they had to leave and we got to stay. But then there are fundamental issues about the services. There is one sewer that services the whole building. So fine, we move to the Lords end, the work is happening down here, and then something goes wrong—the electricity fails or the sewer fails. If the electricity fails, it is going to take the devil’s own job of a time to try to work out what is wrong and how to fix it, and we stop working in the interim. If the sewer breaks, that makes the whole building unusable. It is really very difficult operationally, in a building that was designed as one with the services flowing from one end to the other, to simply say, “We’ll put something down the middle; that end’s fine and this end isn’t.”

We looked at using Westminster Hall, but there are historical reasons why that is difficult. Perhaps more than any other part of this building, we have a duty to protect Westminster Hall. It is the heart of the building which, back in 1834, the fire brigade chose to protect. In the second world war, when the bomb was dropped, the fire brigade chose to protect Westminster Hall. We cannot abuse Westminster Hall because it gives us a chance to stay a bit closer to this building while the works are happening. We looked at that exhaustively and came to the conclusion that it was not possible.

I think that anyone who looks through these issues carefully and in detail will reach the same conclusion that we all did five years ago. I commend the work of the Sponsor Body and the work that is to come from the Delivery Body. We chose to recommend that those were set up because we felt that that was the right way forward —to learn the lessons of the London Olympics, to follow a single approach to doing it, and to learn from how similar bodies made that project work effectively. My request to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and all those who are on the Sponsor Body is: please let us get on with this. With every month and every year that goes by, the risk gets greater. I do not want us, as a generation of politicians, to wake up one morning to find that we were the people who did not act in time, the building is no more, and the taxpayer now faces a much, much bigger bill to restore a landmark, as the French do with Notre-Dame. Please, I say to the Leader of the House and to all colleagues, let us get on with this as quickly as we can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

Actually, there was. The memory of the right hon. Gentleman is failing him, I am afraid. There was a proposal to demolish it. The bit that I think he differs on is whether there was a proposal to demolish the staircases, which some people think are intrinsic to Richmond House. Personally, I think that they are the ugliest bit of the building. The truth is, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) said earlier, it would be perfectly possible if people like the right hon. Gentleman had not been complaining that we had to have a Chamber that was identical to this Chamber—[Interruption.] If I am diminishing the right hon. Gentleman, my memory is different from his. If we wanted to go to a system where we slightly changed the parameters of what is in there, I am up for that, but it remains a fact that Richmond House is the only piece of land that is contiguous to the rest of the parliamentary estate and therefore safe.

As for the other things that have not changed, the building was designed as a whole, not from the very beginning, but after the fire. After 1834, one of the great, clever things that Barry and Pugin did was to amalgamate the estate into a single proposition about the British constitution, from the Commons through to the Lords and the monarch and incorporating the ancient Westminster Hall from the 11th century. That poses a real problem for those who want us to decant in part, because there is one central heating system, which is steam under high pressure; there is one electricity system; there is one drainage system; there is one water system; and there is one basement, interconnected, with a set of risers that connect it to the one attic and roof. That is the problem for the future safety of the building.

The reason I completely disagree with the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown)—it is rare for us to disagree on matters of this kind—about the idea of a partial decant, and the Commons going down to the Lords while the Lords go elsewhere, is that the Lords is not contiguous to the offices on the northern estate. So a safe passageway would be needed for votes and for people to be able to take part in debates, or people would have to walk along the pavements outside. All the advice that was given to us was that that was a security risk for us. More importantly, one of the problems with trying to keep us in the Lords—which, incidentally, is too small a Chamber with far too few seats for the House of Commons to be able to sit in—is that if we kept this building working while it was a building site, we would dramatically increase the risk of a further fire and we would increase the risk to the staff who were working in it. That was precisely the problem in Notre Dame, and that is what led to the massive fire there.

[Chris Grayling]

It is probably unusual for the hon. Gentleman and me to be in strong agreement and for me to disagree with my good and hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), but I agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman has said. Of course, there is one other small factor that one has to take into account, which is, of course, that the plans need to be approved by both Houses of Parliament. There was always a slight question mark over whether the Lords would agree to be thrown out.

[Chris Bryant]

I do not think there was a slight question mark. It was absolutely clear that the Lords would not move out merely so as to accommodate the Commons sitting in the House of Lords.