Parliamentary Commercial Department

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am moving this Motion on behalf of the House of Lords Commission. We are asking the House to support and endorse the report published on 14 May establishing Parliament’s commercial function as a joint department of both Houses. I hope that noble Lords have read the report, which provides a clear explanation of and rationale for this decision. The Parliamentary Commercial Directorate is a shared service between both Houses, based in the House of Lords. It is responsible for all procurement and it sets and monitors standards for contract management across Parliament.

In 2022 the noble Lord, Lord Morse, undertook an independent review of financial management, which included looking in considerable detail at Parliament’s shared commercial service. The noble Lord found underperformance in all commercial areas compared with the rest of the public sector. Following publication of his report in November 2022, new leadership was brought in. The new commercial directors developed and delivered significant improvements, and by March 2025 these were rated as being good or better in all areas.

The commercial needs of Parliament are complex and challenging, and likely to become even more so in the future. It is essential that our commercial function continues to improve and has the confidence of both commissions. To achieve this, the next step is the establishment of the joint department. Before reaching this decision, we in the commission sought assurances about the arrangements to protect the joint interests of each House and to continue the improvements already under way. We have agreed a governance and performance framework so that the department will now be accountable to both Houses and will provide information about its priorities, service and performance. The current directorate staff—around 40 people—will be transferred to the new department and employed jointly by the Clerk of the Parliaments and the Clerk of the House of Commons as the corporate officers. The team will be led by a new chief commercial officer currently being recruited. We expect the transfer to take place on 1 October.

In conclusion, I acknowledge and recognise the significant improvements that have been made in the last couple of years following the excellent and very helpful report and review of the noble Lord, Lord Morse. I put on record our thanks for the commitment and professionalism shown by the commercial directors and their team in achieving this. I look forward to working with them to achieve further progress. I beg to move.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

I welcome the decision to make some changes here, but can the noble Baroness tell the House what the cost of the new front door at the Peers’ Entrance has been? Very senior Members of this House and members of the commission have been told repeatedly that they cannot know the cost of the front door, because if they knew the cost of the front door that would enable terrorists to work out what the security is surrounding it. I suspect that the costs of the front door make it one of the most expensive front doors in the world, and it is a front door that does not work. Various Members from all sides of the House protested right at the beginning that this design would not work as it would result in people having to queue outside to get in and they would therefore be more vulnerable. We were told that no, it had been carefully designed and the system had been looked at, but we now discover that we need somebody permanently there to press the button to open the door. The other evening someone in a wheelchair was unable to access the House. It is a complete white elephant and a disaster.

I do not wish to be unkind to any of the staff who serve this House or to underestimate the difficulties of dealing with a historic building of this kind, but it is simply not acceptable that public money should be spent in this way with such disastrous consequences, with no one being held to account and no knowledge of the associated costs. If we are going to have a joint department—and I welcome the appointment of some new leadership in this area—how can we be assured that the necessary commercial competencies will be there, as well as the ability to understand the importance of listening to what this House has to say and taking account of it in making these decisions?

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[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, mentioned my diplomatic skills. I now start my audition for a role at the UN.

I will challenge one thing the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said, which I strongly reject: that we are a part-time House. Those of us who were here at 1.30 am would not think that. We are a full-time House. We do not expect every Member the of House to be full-time, but the work of the House is a full-time responsibility.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

I stand corrected. Perhaps I should have said that, unlike the other place, we are unpaid.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

Round one on my diplomatic interview. A number of points have been raised and I want to try to address them. This has gone wider than the question.

On the door itself, there are two issues: cost and operability. It is completely unacceptable that we have a door that does not operate as it should. I can answer some of the questions. I will deal with the cost first, because there is wildly exaggerated and incorrect information. When you do not give information that is correct, incorrect information gets into the realm, which is unhelpful.

There is normally a rule that information regarding security costs is not provided. I think that does not help in this case at all. In terms of how it came about in the first place, noble Lords will remember—the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, may remember this—the Murphy review. After the death of a police officer at the other end of the building, it was important we considered the safety of those who work on the estate—not just Peers and MPs but all those who work on the estate. Their safety and security are of the utmost importance. We have had incidents that show that is important. The fence was part of the review. Noble Lords have been consulted and advised on that on many occasions. It is about security.

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[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, it is an accepted tradition that we do not disclose security information and the costs. Costs on this have been available to Members on the relevant committees, so they were available—and I will probably be sacked later for giving the costs anyway. Given that there was this degree of suspicion about the costs—some of the figures were inflated—and because the door has not been working, it was the view of the commission yesterday that it was important that the costs were made available to Members, so that they have accurate information. When we spend that much money on something that does not work, the key thing is that it is resolved, and that is what I am focused on.

On the new joint department, it is really important going forward that we have the right expertise and the right knowledge. There are things that went wrong here that should be used to inform further decisions, and engaging Members on all these decisions is really important. However, when we engage Members, there are, dare I say it, two Members and three opinions, and a wide spread of views around the House, and sometimes we have to say no to Members because we cannot say yes to everybody. There is a danger that we try to please everybody and end up pleasing nobody.

The words “lessons learned” are currently banned from my office, but there are some points here that we can take away and use to resolve these issues, so that we do not have the same problems in the future. The important thing is to get this joint department up and running, with the proper oversight, and to ensure we have proper and workable security arrangements that protect all of those who work in the Palace and that do the job they are supposed to do.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

I do not want to detain the House, but I am worried about the point from the noble Lord, Lord Hayward. I understand the point about maintaining security, but it is awfully convenient to be able to say that we cannot be told the cost. What is the cost, for example, of the new fence that has been put up, which is hideous? We are being told that we cannot know that because of security, but each and every one of us goes back to where we live—I was going to say to our constituencies—and get mocked about the cost. We are held accountable, and we are meant to be accountable. My worry about this “tradition” is that it means that there is no accountability. When you do not have accountability for expenditure, you get excessive expenditure—and my goodness me, that front door is an example.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

The noble Lord made a number of points. There are always increased costs because of the heritage nature of the building. I do not think any of us is entirely comfortable with having a fence. In the days when I was first a Member of Parliament in the other place, you could walk in without even needing a pass. Times have changed, and that is the reason we have this fence. These things are not unreasonable if there is genuinely a security issue, and I would defend that, but perhaps we sometimes need to stress-test these things a little more, and perhaps that is a role for the commission to undertake.

Sometimes costs seem alarming. Those of us who used to be in local government or who were Ministers will know that, when you account for things and look at the cost, it always seems far more than if you were doing it in your own back garden. This is not just a front door; it is something much more serious than that, and we have to get it up and running. All of us on the commission—a number of us are here in the Chamber today—will take this away, and I know that the Lord Speaker feels the same. We will stress-test those issues. Where information can be made available to Members, it should be, but where it cannot, noble Lords can trust the commission to look at these issues and make decisions with the security people.