Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal

Lord Carter of Coles Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carter of Coles (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a delight to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, particularly given his comments on timing. As a member of the Joint Committee, I start by giving my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, for her very skilful co-chairing—it was not always easy. At the same time, I commend Chris Bryant and Members in the other place for securing what has been a key amendment.

The noble Lord, Lord Butler, talked about trusteeship or custodial responsibilities, and I think these fall into three. We have responsibility for this great building, its reputation and its structure; we have responsibility for the expenditure of public money; and, probably most importantly, we have responsibility for those who work in and visit this building.

As we have said, the Palace of Westminster is one of the most important buildings in the world. It is recognised as such by UNESCO, by tourists and, sadly, by terrorists, all for different reasons. Its iconic status means that its defence, in every way, is critical. We should not underestimate the great affection in which the building is held, not only by parliamentarians but by the British public and people abroad. We should remember that, economically, its iconic status draws a vast number of people to London to see it and other things. There were 18 million visitors to London last year, and we should not underestimate the totality of that effect.

Other nations that, like us, reached the state of democracy in the 19th century and built buildings to reflect that have all had to consider what to do with those buildings to future-proof them for the 21st century. The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, mentioned the Canadian Parliament, and what it did is very interesting. It carried out a total decant of the main building, very similar to that which we are proposing here. However, it proposes to spend some $2 billion and we are proposing to spend £3.5 billion. In this case, we might get Canada-plus-plus—who knows?

Let me turn to another example, the Austrian Parliament, which points to the question of what we do. Having studied the matter, the Austrian Parliament was offered the choice of decanting to a teachers’ training college on the edge of Vienna. That did not go down very well. I am pleased to report that the Parliament is now ensconced in the Hofburg, part of the Imperial Palace, somewhat nearer to its original site. Getting right where we go afterwards and how we live through the coming period is important, and maintaining the connection between both Chambers is critical if we are to retain the democratic flow that we have.

There is a high degree of consensus that the Palace must be refurbished, but the issues are timing and money. As custodians of the national purse we must look carefully at what we do and how we put the governance in place. The Joint Committee is very clear in its recommendations for that, because we recognise that this is a dynamic situation. This will be a very difficult project. Look at Barry’s estimates for rebuilding the Palace in the 1840s. He put forward the remarkably precise figure of £724,986. In fact, it cost £2 million. We have not been good at getting this stuff right, and Members in the other place are critical of the report, claiming that we mis-measured Richmond House by 16 feet and five inches. That points to the fact that this will be dynamic: things are going to change. We will find things that we did not expect to, and we must allow for that, factor it in and stay on top of it. That is why the sponsor board and the delivery authority recommended in the report are so critical. It is comforting that that mechanism was used with great success in the delivery of the 2012 Olympics, and the role of the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, in that should give us great confidence. We have delivered other great projects, and the key is that we should have the courage to take this forward and not continually kick things into the long grass so that we do not have to face reality.

Affordability will of course always be an issue. Do we spend £3.5 billion quickly over six years or do we space it over a long time, with the great risk that that entails? If you look at it, you will see that over six years it is about £600 million a year, which means 18 pence per week for each of us in the United Kingdom over that period. That is not too much to ask to build and restore one of the great buildings of the world and keep it intact for 150 years to come. We have faced that issue and accepted it—it is affordable.

We should remember that we have to tackle this because, as many other noble Lords have said, safety must be paramount. If we look back to the 19th century, our predecessors were out of this Chamber for 13 years and the other place was out of its Chamber for 18 years simply because they did not pay attention to the risk of catastrophic failure. We live with that every day. Many noble Lords have seen the horrors of the basement here, with the pipes and so forth. We are all aware of the dangers. The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, referred to the ventilation stacks that could so easily carry fire through the building. Work may not start until 2025, but I am in favour of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that we should try to accelerate this because we are at risk. We need to ensure in that time that we have compartmentalisation and we attend to things. We have seven years at risk that we need to mitigate in some way and make sure that we fulfil our responsibility to keep people safe in the building.

If we tie all that together, there is a strong case of getting on with it. We should take the opportunity to turn this great and wonderful building from a 19th-century piece of history, which has stood the test of time well, into something that reflects, in technology and everything else, the 21st century. That is for the people working in it, for the visitors and—this point has been strongly made —for the disabled. The state of this building for the disabled is a disgrace and we should correct it. We should create a building that represents our values and, more importantly, our aspirations.

I end on a personal note. I am lucky enough to share an office on the second floor West Front with three other noble Lords. Our average age is 83 and one of us will be 94 in three weeks. The dilemma of the House authorities was highlighted when I asked them, “What shall we do? There is a risk here with my colleagues”. They very helpfully suggested that we could move down and be near a door. That means other noble Lords will take our place. I hope they are more agile and able to run faster in the event of a fire, but that is hardly a health and safety policy for the 21st century. We should firmly support the Motion before us. As other noble Lords have said, it gives us the chance to move forward but to maintain the flexibility to do so in the best manner.