Restoration and Renewal: Annual Progress Report

Debate between Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill and Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury

Wednesday 18th October 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I have had the privilege of serving on many of your Lordships’ committees in the last 10 years, but I honestly believe that the committee programme board on which I now sit is by far the most important that I have sat on. It is for this reason. While most of our committees make recommendations to the Government—who may or may not choose to follow them; more often than not, they do not—on this occasion we will bring forward the recommendations to the client board. The recommendations will require Parliament to take an executive decision itself; that is very unusual, but it is a huge responsibility for parliamentarians to take a decision about their own building.

As the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, said, this has been going on for a long time—the can has been pushed down the road for a long time—so, when I was asked to go on the programme board, I did so with a great deal of trepidation, because I thought, “This could be Groundhog Day all over again”. I asked myself whether we would achieve anything. The answer is: we have—much to my surprise. How have we done that? Without getting drawn into the boring structural description of governance, it has been the people on, and supporting, the programme board who have done this. We have had a fantastic team of people helping us, including a chairman, my right honourable friend Nigel Evans, who has run the board very efficiently; a vice-chair, the noble Lord, Lord Morse, who has his beady eye, as befits any former Comptroller and Auditor-General; and a tremendous team of experts.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, there is a Division in the House. The Committee will resume at the end of the Division when everybody is back.