Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill

Debate between Earl Howe and Baroness Quin

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 22nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, for their amendment, which brings us back to the vexed issue of decant. The amendment would require the sponsor body to prepare, publish and lay before Parliament a report giving an assessment of relocating the Houses of Parliament, for the duration of the parliamentary building works, to a location outside London.

As noble Lords will be aware, the Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster suggested that the Commons should decant to the Northern Estate, including Richmond House, and the Lords should decant to the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre. I can only underline the words of my noble friend Lord Haselhurst: those recommendations were based on substantial analysis of where Parliament could be relocated during R&R. This included a pre-feasibility study commissioned by Parliament in 2012. Just to clarify what I said at Second Reading, that study looked into the preliminary business case for R&R and considered whether Parliament should decant and, if so, whether it should be to a location outside Westminster, whether temporarily or permanently. It concluded that because the,

“geographical proximity of Parliament to Government is of significance … substantial additional costs would be incurred”.

On the back of the pre-feasibility study, the House authorities commissioned the independent options appraisal. This was scrutinised by the Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster, which considered the various options for R&R. In its report the committee noted that it had considered the proposal to temporarily relocate Parliament during R&R. It concluded, as was well summarised by my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth, that,

“the option of temporarily locating Parliament outside London during the works, while attractive in many ways, carries an unacceptable burden of cost and inconvenience, which would otherwise be avoided”.

It reached that decision as Parliament currently owns a number of buildings around the Palace of Westminster, such as the Northern Estate and Millbank House. These buildings provide both office space for Members and many committee and meeting rooms. If Parliament were to relocate during R&R, it would mean abandoning these buildings, thereby increasing the costs associated with decant.

I listened with care to the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition. In its report, the Joint Committee brought our attention to the evidence of the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, who served as Cabinet Secretary and head of the Civil Service for a decade. He described how he had,

“no doubt in saying that Parliament needs ready access to Ministers and vice versa. Departments also need ready access to Ministers and vice versa. It is an old-fashioned syllogism. The three need to be closely co-ordinated if Government is to work properly”.

I hope to convey that there has already been substantial work to assess whether the permanent or temporary location of Parliament should be outside London. On the back of that work, the matter was decided by Parliament in the Motions passed in 2018. Furthermore, contrary to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, I have concerns that the noble Baroness’s amendment, however well intentioned, might seriously delay progress on R&R. Significant work has already been undertaken to identify the decant locations and to formulate designs for the Northern Estate. If we were to decide to decant to somewhere else at this stage, we would need to start the process all over again.

I just do not think that we should go back and unpick the clear decision taken last year or the substantial work that has already been undertaken. To do so risks delaying this important, and urgent, project. Many of us would say that the work is already overdue. We absolutely must secure the Palace of Westminster—a grade I listed building, part of a UNESCO world heritage site and the home of UK democracy—for future generations. I am sure that I do not need to remind noble Lords of the problems that this building faces. Falling masonry, sewage leaks and the alarming number of fires caught just in time all demonstrate the pressing need to pass this Bill and get on with the job. We simply do not have time to delay.

So, for the reasons I have set out, I am afraid that the Government must express significant reservations about this amendment.

[Baroness Quin]

My Lords, I thank all Members who have taken part in this short debate. To describe it kindly, I would say there have been mixed reactions, with some thinking the amendment far from modest and quite over the top, and my noble friend Lord Berkeley feeling it did not go far enough. The issues raised will not go away. We need to think imaginatively about how we rebalance our country to tackle overcentralisation and overconcentration. I will reflect on what has been said but, in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

NHS: Clinical Commissioning Groups

Debate between Earl Howe and Baroness Quin

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

It was for very much that reason that NHS England decided last year not to interfere with the formula but to give a 2.3% real-terms uplift to all CCGs. The last thing we want to do is to take money away from areas where health outcomes are the worst.

[Baroness Quin (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that in the north-east of England huge concern has been expressed about the initial proposals? This has been widely and repeatedly trailed in the press in the north-east. While I welcome what the Minister said about tackling health inequalities, can he give us an assurance that the most vulnerable communities and the most vulnerable people will not lose out as a result of this consultation?

[Earl Howe]

There are two elements to consider here. One is the target allocation, which is what NHS England is currently working on, and the other is the actual allocation—the money given to individual areas. The task for NHS England will be to decide how quickly or slowly to move from current allocations to the target. The key will be not to destabilise any NHS area in that process.

NHS: Spending Formula

Debate between Earl Howe and Baroness Quin

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Quin]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to make changes to the formula governing levels of NHS spending in the different NHS regions in England.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, from 2013-14, the NHS Commissioning Board will allocate resources to clinical commissioning groups and the Department of Health will make a ring-fenced public health grant to local authorities. The Secretary of State has asked the independent Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation to develop formulae for both CCGs and local authorities. We published ACRA’s interim recommendations for local authorities on 14 June and its recommendations on CCG funding will be published in due course.

[Baroness Quin]

Is the Minister aware of the deep concern in the north-east and other parts of the north of England that if the Government, as has been rumoured, move away from using deprivation and health inequalities as an important criterion, and simply use an age criterion, areas of the north where life expectancy is lower will lose out, compared to more affluent areas in the south? This and other government-trailed proposals, such as regional public sector pay or regionalised benefits, as well as the daily reality of more job losses and more house repossessions in the north than in the south, are adding to concerns that there will be a dramatic worsening of the north-south divide. Will the Minister and his colleagues commit themselves to narrowing that divide, rather than widening it further?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, yes. I am aware that this has been said, and it is based on a misapprehension, perhaps as a result of misunderstanding what my right honourable friend the Secretary of State said a few weeks ago. He was not suggesting that deprivation should not be a part of the future funding formula, but simply that age should continue to be the primary factor, as it currently is and should be, in the context of our intention to reduce inequalities of access to health services.