Restoration and Renewal of the Palace of Westminster

Debate between Meg Hillier and Thangam Debbonaire

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. She is right to raise it and to pay tribute to the work of the Public Accounts Committee. Am I confident? I am not currently confident or certain of where we are at the moment in terms of delivering anything in the way that we wanted to, but I am confident that we need to do it. Having spoken to the Delivery Authority, I am confident that it views this as doable, and it is the authority that will be carrying out the work. Having reviewed the situation, the Independent Expert Panel noted:

“in principle the existing governance model could be made to work, but that lost confidence and momentum means that retaining the current model is unlikely to work.”

What it has also said, which might speak to my hon. Friend’s question, is that the recommendation of bringing the Sponsor Body function in-house should be viewed as a pragmatic measure to cover what is needed for the next 12 to 24 months—the decision phase if you like. It has also recommended that that pragmatism should not preclude alternative future options. We need to see this as part of a process to get us to the decision. Regrettable though it may be, and I do regret it, that we are where we are, this appears to be a compromise way of moving forward, with best value for money, safety and time.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comments about the Public Accounts Committee. To be clear, the role of that Committee is no substitute for the role of a proper sponsor or client function that keeps a close eye on the cost on a day-to-day basis. We look at things retrospectively, although we may make recommendations. Nor are we, as the Public Accounts Committee, expert enough to deliver this process. She talks about our report. Our report said that we regretted that decisions were made secretively and in private on a decision that was before the House and an Act of Parliament of this House. Does she have any comment about how we got from that Act of Parliament to where we are today?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I completely support what my hon. Friend says. Why are we here? I have already mentioned my own view on why we are here, at least partly. We need to note here that the Sponsor Body was repeatedly asked, as if we had had a referendum—goodness me—and asked people to keep voting on it until they came up with the answer that was wanted. It is very difficult to avoid looking at some of what has happened over the past couple of years and coming to the conclusion that there were people who were just going to keep asking until they got a different answer and, eventually, when they got a different answer, they said, “I don’t like that answer.”

That is problematic. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that it is not the duty of the Public Accounts Committee to scrutinise the day-to-day spending of this body, whether it is in-house or external. It will need a very strong programme board, which will need expertise. There will also have to be extremely tight accounting measures.

I do not yet know exactly who will be on the programme board. I urge all those right hon. and hon. Members who have not just an interest—interest alone is not enough—but actual skill in this area, and ideally some of those who have history, having sat on so many Committees, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) and the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) have, to consider whether they should be part of the programme board. I certainly urge them to think about it.

Doing nothing is not an option. There is no doubt that large-scale work is needed. Asbestos, leaks, wires, plumbing nobody knows the function of, a building at risk of fire and flood—my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) is quite right that the fire remediation works mean that we are protected, but the building is not—this work has to happen. It is testament to the hard-working House staff and to contractors that we thankfully have not yet witnessed a catastrophic failure of the building, as has been seen in others around the world, but at some stage that hard work will not be enough.

I want that on record. We must make sure that we are not the Parliament that delayed, at the cost of this magnificent building with its magnificent history. The parliamentary estate is in desperate need, and it is important that the restoration and renewal process works well with Parliament’s maintenance teams, who do such a good job. We have therefore no choice but to find a way out.

I note the amendment in the name of my hon. Friends the Members for Rhondda and for Hackney South and Shoreditch and other right hon. and hon. Members, who are incredibly knowledgeable. I agree with their desire for urgency and that everything must be done to avoid unnecessary delay, cost and risk. I particularly pay further tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch for the work she has done on the Public Accounts Committee. I reiterate that in its recent report, the Committee encouraged further scrutiny. Value for taxpayers is important.

Before I close, I also recognise my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East, who in his role as Chair of the Finance Committee and the Parliamentary Works Estimates Commission has been invaluable, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside. Many hon. Members have sat on the Committees for many years, but I do believe he may be the only one to have sat on pretty much all of them for a significant amount of time. His incredible wealth of knowledge seems to me to be unmatched.

However, having made my points, I will not test the House’s patience by pushing the amendment in my name to a vote. I will end by saying that we are the generation who have been given the honour, the privilege and, yes, we could say the burden of sorting this problem out. I think it is an honour and a privilege. Some of us will not see the end of it—either we will be no more, or we will be no more Members of Parliament. That is just where we are. We are the generation who decided to put it off no longer. We must go on record as having done everything we can to get the process moving, to preserve and enhance the Palace of Westminster so that it can go on as a safe, thriving and accessible workplace for many, many more centuries to come.