Restoration and Renewal

John Nicolson Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[John Nicolson (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) for securing the debate and hon. Members who have contributed.

Great ideas, constructive debates and empathetic policies need a home. The space in which ideas, debates and policies flourish really matters. In the wake of the bombing of the House of Commons Chamber during the second world war, Winston Churchill said:

“We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.”—[Official Report, 28 October 1943; Vol. 393, c. 403.]

The Palace of Westminster is a glorious building. It is a work of art filled with works of art, a UNESCO world heritage site that is recognised the world over, the home of scoundrels and the odd hero for 1,000 years.

We are meeting here in the shadow of Westminster Hall, which was built in the 11th century by William II, son of William the Conqueror. He conceived the project to impress his new subjects: it was the largest hall in England, and probably all of Europe, when it was built. It was here that Charles I and Sir Thomas More were tried. It was here that the great Scottish patriot William Wallace faced a kangaroo court before being murdered by the English state, all because he wanted Scottish independence; Edward I had said, “Now is not the time,” and refused a section 30 order. The hall has seen monarchs lie in state and witnessed great state occasions such as Nelson Mandela’s address.

Fires have been a scourge throughout history, but from the ashes of the 1834 blaze rose the glories of Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin’s Gothic revival masterpiece. Of course we should repair and restore it—it has been crumbling around us, and as the scaffolding comes down we can see that some ancient skills are still flourishing. The hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) made an excellent point about skills being passed on from generation to generation in a single building. The honey stonework repairs are beautifully done, and the iconic tower housing Big Ben has been restored with the original Victorian clock face’s colours returned and the finest German craftsmanship on display, with 1,300 German-made glass panes glittering in the sun as we speak.

There has always been a debate in architectural refurbishment circles between restoration and conservation. Do we return buildings to their original form with exact replicas, or do we keep the best of what has gone before but allow buildings a useful present and future-proof them for coming generations? Our constituents have rightly questioned the cost of the works at the Palace of Westminster, especially in the midst of a cost of living crisis. We have to justify what we are doing and explain our decisions, so it is important to communicate this stuff to members of the public. How can we serve our constituents to the best of our ability if, even after so much taxpayer money has been poured into this place, it remains so ill-suited to the work that we were sent here to do?

I think we owe it to history to repair this magnificent building, and good restoration does not come cheap, but if we consent to the costs, we owe it to the taxpayer to make the building an efficient place to work in. We should respect history, but not wallow in it. Restoration should not mean stagnation.

Much about how we go about our business here is absurd. We have more than a dozen bars, but not a single crèche anywhere on the estate. We have sword hooks in the cloakroom, but no wheelchair access to much of the Chamber. As a teenager, I remember reading with horror that a Member of Parliament, Alfred Broughton, offered to be stretchered on to the estate from his deathbed to have his vote registered on a motion of confidence to save the Callaghan Government. It was indefensibly cruel.

We took the opportunity to address our absurd voting system during the pandemic, and considerable sums of money were spent on devising and then perfecting an electronic voting system. It worked yet, incomprehensibly, the then Leader of the House, already somewhat of a caricature on these matters, decided to abandon the system, resulting in Members on crutches queuing up past midnight to cast their votes. Small wonder that Westminster has been such a covid plague hotbed.

Westminster’s workings are ludicrous in so many ways—we know it and our constituents know it—and we should not defend the absurdities but take this opportunity to reform them. After all, this is the perfect time. The restoration of the building will preserve its architectural glories, but let us also make it a contemporary place of work with electronic voting, disability access, full-time childcare facilities and all the other basic accoutrements of a modern democracy, including the continuation of remote working where necessary. If I might say so, we saw a perfect illustration of some of the strange, peculiar and archaic practices earlier when we discovered that we can use iPads, but only if we tap the screen and not the silent keypads—I mean, really.

Members on both sides of the House tend to agree on much of this, so we should be more assertive. Electronic voting was abandoned against our wishes by a languid Leader of the House who preferred supine siestas on the Green Benches to rolling up his sleeves to ensure that the restoration and renewal of the Palace is fit for a modern Parliament.

I have good news and bad news for the former Leader of the House and the other parliamentary luddites who resist change. Very soon there will be more room to recline. Churchill may have ordered that the Chamber be rebuilt deliberately too small in scale for the number of Members, leaving some literally seatless at great parliamentary occasions, but soon there will be 59 Scottish seats available for Members to stretch out in comfort.

For the three centuries of our parliamentary Union, Scots have walked these halls, bellowed in the Chambers and occasionally, just occasionally, changed the course of history, when we were allowed to, of course. In what will, I hope, be a velvet divorce, we have made it clear that we will assume 10% of the debt and 10% of the assets, but it would only be fair to offer a deal: Members of the House can have all of Westminster, even though we have paid for so much of it, but how about we get Scotland Yard in return? Once the Scottish embassy, accommodating monarchs and diplomatic representatives from the Kingdom of Scotland, it is about time we got it back.

I look forward to joining our architecturally outstanding but accessible, family friendly, hybrid-working Parliament in Edinburgh, but in the short time we have left here I will do all I can to push this Parliament to do better, to support the restoration and to modernise. It is in England’s long-term interest, after all, and what are good neighbours for?