Restoration and Renewal

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, this Motion marks the end of a very sorry chapter. I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Newby, who clearly outlined how we have got to where we are today. It almost beggars belief that Parliament set up a sponsor body through primary legislation and gave it a clear brief agreed by both Houses, but found itself unable to live with the independent process that it had set up.

I pay tribute to Liz Peace who, as chair of the sponsor board, worked tirelessly with her team to try to make the relationship with Parliament a success. I know there were considerable frustrations that it was not possible to set up a proper liaison committee between the sponsor board and Parliament, so I cannot agree with the Leader of the House that Parliament was not fully consulted. I know that Liz Peace and her team did everything possible to ensure that that was not the case.

But we are where we are, so I want to move forward and look at how we can make real progress on restoration and renewal. First, it is obvious to me that bringing the functions of the sponsor board back in-house is the right way forward under the circumstances. As this process has unfolded, it has become painfully obvious that the parallel with running the Olympics is easy to draw but very hard to sustain. I have seen at first hand how well this model can work, having been involved in overseeing the delivery of the Olympics, but the Olympics was totally different. It had a clearly defined budget and minimal political interference—the exact opposite to where the sponsor body found itself.

It is clear that the two Houses wish to retain ownership of how this precious building is made safe for the present and preserved for the future, and this is unlikely to change. I believe that putting these arrangements in place for just the programme definition period of 12 to 24 months is very unwise, because this is likely to be the best structure going forward. We should set it up accordingly and not just see it as a short-term fix.

We have been told that the commissions are set to delegate authority to a new programme board, a joint decision-making board of the two Houses, but we have been here before. Parliament delegated this role to the sponsor body, but then refused to accept its findings. It is really not rocket science to work out that costs would be lower and the project much more straightforward to deliver if the building closed for several decades.

It is therefore essential that the programme board has strong political leadership and cross-party representation, otherwise it just will not command authority or be able to act consistently across several electoral cycles. It should include representation from the major parties in both Houses and the Cross Benches and be chaired, in my view, by a senior member of the governing party who has the ear of the Government. This is crucial if we want to make sure there is no repeat of the current fiasco.

Giving it real responsibility for delivery of the project is vital, as is keeping the process in-house for the long term. But let us not delude ourselves that in-house automatically means good and efficient. As chair of the Lords Finance Committee for four years, I saw some disturbing examples of work not being properly defined before tender, surveys and advance investigations that were limited in scope, budgets running out of control and virtually no corporate memory.

We must above all else ensure that these mistakes are not repeated on an epic scale during restoration and renewal. But before we start, we must tackle the safety issue in the basement so graphically outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Best. In my view, a first step would be to re-provide above ground crucial mechanical and electrical infrastructure currently in the basement. If we were, for example, to use electricity above ground to heat the Palace rather than the steam boilers in the basement, we could end the highly dangerous practice of mixing steam and electrical cabling underground—a fire risk for which any other building would almost certainly be prosecuted. It would also enable full access to the basement, allowing the underground renovation to be undertaken over a longer period, at a lower cost and with a better outcome.

While the safety work is under way, the commissions and/or the programme board can concentrate on what is the minimum viable way forward for the wider R&R programme. We simply must move away from endless assessments of options in the foreground and political wrangling in the background, since both are barriers to making real progress. Instead, let us recognise that with a project of this kind even the minimum option is enormous in complexity and cost. I would rather, if necessary, now deliver the minimum than keep on arguing about the parameters of the maximum.

Let us now seize the moment to make this building safe once and for all, establish what we are prepared to spend to preserve it for the long term, take responsibility for delivering it and, above all, get on with it.