Privilege: Conduct of Right Hon. Boris Johnson
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
It is not really my duty to close this debate, but with the kind permission of the Chair of the Committee, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), and the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), there are three things I want briefly to say.
First, I thank again the Privileges Committee, as many Members have said, for the work it has done. It is a task that we gave it to do, and it has carried it out in very difficult circumstances.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Does the Leader of the House agree that, whatever view one takes on this matter and whichever side one is on, the House unanimously set up the membership of the Privileges Committee—all seven Members—who worked for months diligently to produce this report, but they have come under huge criticism and abuse, so much so that they have had to have extra security, to preserve the reputation of this House, and this House therefore owes them a huge debt of gratitude?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank my hon. Friend, and I think he makes that point very well.
Secondly, I acknowledge the tributes that some colleagues have paid to their friend and former colleague. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) said, for many Members this is a sad and difficult duty.
Finally, I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. This is an important matter. As I have said, Members should make up their own minds and follow their conscience. They may agree or disagree with the report, or they may agree and disagree with the report and different aspects of it, as some Members have. They should do what they think is right. They should be left alone to make up their own minds, they should be left alone to vote and, having cast their vote or not, they should be left alone afterwards. I hope that is something all Members of this House can agree on.
Question put.
Members of Parliament: Risk-based Exclusion
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I agree with my hon. Friend, and thank her for the work that she has done. We have an obligation to members of staff on the estate, and we have an obligation to Members to ensure that matters are treated confidentially. We also have an obligation to ensure that our principles and the minutiae of our schemes are compatible with fairness and natural justice.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Will those accused have an adequate opportunity to present their own defence, and will they be informed of what the offence is?
Penny Mordaunt
The answer is yes, in both cases. The scheme does not sit in isolation. In circumstances such as this, there tends to be a conversation with the Member concerned and with the Whips Office, and the Member may remove himself or herself from the estate on a voluntary basis. This will apply in a tiny number of cases, and the motivation for it is not just a duty of care to colleagues and members of staff on the estate, but ensuring that an individual who is trying, in what we all know are very difficult circumstances, to keep matters confidential is not put in a position that could make the situation a great deal worse. These are very difficult, complicated matters, and it is good that we are discussing them this evening.
When we decide rules and processes in this place, it is important that we stick with them. We as individuals cannot outsource consideration of such matters to other individuals or Committees, or pretend that the problems do not exist. We cannot shirk our responsibility to find solutions to them, or turn a blind eye when we see wrong being done. The letter of the law requires the spirit of the law to be followed as well, and trust will not be built without a commitment from all of us.
With that in mind, I am taking forward two new pieces of work that are relevant to the matter we are discussing this evening. First, I recommended to the Commission that we get someone to take a look at the entire standards landscape. Was it fit for purpose? Was it something of which we could be proud? The Chair of the Standards Committee, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), is engaged in that work, and I know that he wants to look at the whole landscape. I, as Leader of the House of Commons, am bringing someone in to advise me on these matters, which I hope will provide us with an additional sense check on the quality of what we do, the culture of our unique community, and its alignment to justice, fairness and good practice. I will make the findings available to the Commission, the Standards Committee and others with an interest in these matters.
Secondly, I have long argued that we will only arrive at what good looks like if we, as the House of Commons, work in partnership with political parties and others who can help to strengthen democracy and improve the work that we do here. I am therefore launching a forum enabling political parties, Government, Parliament and other relevant stakeholders to come together and tackle specific practical issues of concern. That will complement the work of the defending democracy taskforce.
Penny Mordaunt
I completely understand. As I say, this is a rare set of circumstances. The way things are dealt with normally has stood us in good stead, with the exception of the fact that those people are disadvantaged because they cannot vote on the estate. We are talking about a narrow, hypothetical set of circumstances that we have been asked to suggest an answer to. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: this needs to be compatible not just with the principles of this House but with the individual’s human rights. That is an important, fundamental point.
Penny Mordaunt
I am sorry, but I am going to conclude because I am trying the patience of colleagues. I will be happy to respond to any points on behalf of the Commission this afternoon and I thank all Members and House staff who have helped to bring forward these proposals. I want to reassure Members that these matters are for the House to decide and that all members of the Commission are here to listen this afternoon.
Thangam Debbonaire
The panel will be the decision-making body that comes after the four senior members of House staff have considered an investigation and the evidence; have done a risk-assessment process, which they will consult on with relevant external experts; and have then made a risk-mitigation plan, which they will then propose to the decision-making panel. I agree that we use the term “exclusion” too often when, actually, it is only one of many possible mitigations.
When the ICGS was introduced, people made a strong case for it to be confidential, so it will not feed into the process at the moment, but I remind all colleagues of the review later this year.
If this proposal is passed by the House, investigations will initially be assessed by a group of senior House staff and a mitigation plan proposed. The mitigation plan will then go to the decision-making panel, which will make a decision on behalf of us all. It is very important that MPs can be excluded only by other MPs, which is why we came up with this proposal. We have also responded to some people’s concern that we need an external voice. I am keen to hear from other Members about whether we have the right composition.
The mitigations could include exclusion. Before I came to this place, I worked with very violent offenders at different points in the process, usually pre-trial or pre-civil proceedings, and our aim was safety. At the same time as trying to achieve safety, we had the important principle, which Members have raised, of people being presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
The shadow Leader of the House is making a very thoughtful speech. She has satisfied me on the first of my two points: that a person knows there has been a complaint, because there will have been a complaint to the police. My second point is that it is a fundamental tenet of universal human rights that a person who is complained about should have the right to make their own defence. Can she confirm that, under this procedure, such a person will have the right, at every stage, to make their own defence? They might have a perfectly good and reasonable defence as to why this should not take place.
Thangam Debbonaire
Yes, they will, in so far as the criminal justice system provides it. This is only until the criminal justice system concludes its investigation, which could be because the police drop the case, because the Crown Prosecution Service concludes that there is not enough evidence or because the case proceeds to trial—that will be where an accused person has the right to defend themselves, because they are not being accused by this House or by an individual Member. It will be the police who bring the information to the House.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I am sorry to try the House’s patience but, politics being what it is, there is every possibility that a serious vexatious complaint will be made, and the police would have to take it very seriously because it is a serious complaint, but it might be totally fallacious. It is only right that, in this procedure, whoever is accused of a very serious offence should have the full right to defend themselves.
Thangam Debbonaire
I understand the point the hon. Gentleman is making, and I have made a clear note for us to consider it in our further deliberations following this debate.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I greatly respect the hon. Member’s work in this whole area, and I agree with his two principles on safeguarding and fairness. What we have been debating and asking about is how the panel comes to a decision. It is a serious decision, because that person who is excluded from this place may well eventually be found innocent, but the reputational damage is so great that he might lose his job as a Member of Parliament. This is therefore an extremely important matter. How can it possibly be fair that that panel, in coming to that judgment, cannot hear from the person himself or herself as to why they should not be excluded? Surely that cannot be a fair system.
Sir Chris Bryant
I will come to that point, but I will take it in a slightly different direction from the one the hon. Member is aiming at, for the simple reason that when the panel meets, it is not deciding whether somebody is innocent or guilty. I presume that in every instance, the Member themselves would want to co-operate with that process, because it will be in their interests so to do. That would mean they would probably take a voluntary exclusion and decide not to be here, which need never come to public attention. We have got a bit obsessed with exclusion in this process when the likelihood of an exclusion is maybe one or two a Parliament at most.
There are other measures it might be sensible to take. For instance, say a Member has been charged, for the sake of argument, with a violent offence in a pub. We might decide that it would be wise for the House to say that that person should not attend any of the bars in Parliament. Say somebody has been charged, for the sake of argument, with an offence relating to a younger member of staff. Although that name would not be known publicly, we might decide that it was sensible to say that they should not be working in an office environment where there are closed doors or where it is just them and that member of staff. We might say, “We are going to move your office. We will put you in a place where you are working in a set of rooms with other people around as well.” That would be a sensible measure.
My point is that what we do would always have to be proportionate to two things: first, the offence we are talking about; and secondly, the stage at which we are in the process. As the hon. Member for Bracknell said, nearly all these things might only apply at charge, but it might apply at police bail. If the police have gone to a court and explained to a judge that they need to take measures, the House might want to take similar measures. My point is that it all has to be proportionate to the potential offence we are talking about, to the risk that there genuinely is and to the stage at which we have got in the process.
Restoration and Renewal of the Palace of Westminster
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Mark Spencer
That is a little disingenuous. The cast-iron roof project, for example, was delivered in-house and was delivered on time and on budget, which demonstrates that the House authorities do have that ability, but I think they would also recognise that they do not have the expertise, which is why it will be brought in. The programme board will be the structure that has experts who are able to advise and come forward with proposals.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Following on from my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), it is certainly a fact that the people who will be in the joint department have signed off projects in this House such as the Elizabeth Tower, which has trebled in cost. Can the Leader of the House give the House an absolute guarantee that the expert panel will be in place throughout the project and that the joint department will actually take its advice?
Mark Spencer
That would require this House to change that model again if that were the case. That expertise will be brought in and accessed, which is what we require; we do require that expertise. My hon. Friend said that he did not think there was a huge track record, but the model on which we were operating was driving us towards a huge cliff edge where we were going to be faced with a bill of the top side of £20 billion and a decant of 20-plus years, which I do not think this House would tolerate or vote for. We would be completely hamstrung. In that circumstance, what I am suggesting, as are the two Commissions, is that in this model we can come forward with some more practical measures and reprioritisation, which I will come to in a moment.
The relatively small staff team of the Sponsor Body will be brought in-house as a Joint Department, accountable to the Corporate Officers, delivering the strategic case and working in tandem with Strategic Estates. Let me emphasise that the Delivery Authority’s role will remain unchanged; that valuable expertise and experience will remain in place. The senior leadership of the Delivery Authority will continue and, following recent discussions, I am confident and positive about their ability to work within the new governance structure.
Mark Spencer
Of course; it is absolutely vital. I hope that the hon. Lady will recognise that actually Notre Dame burned down—a terrible disaster—because workmen were in there. They had actually decanted, and it was the workmen who were working in there that finally burnt down Notre Dame. So we do have a responsibility to make sure not only that people are safe, but that the building is here for hundreds of years to come. I think we can achieve that by making those our four most important priorities.
For the medium and long term, the Commissions’ report sets out the parameters of how to deliver the works, above all advocating better integration of all the various safety, repair and renewal works that are taking place across the palace. That approach could allow decisions to be brought to Parliament quicker, work to start faster, and priorities to be flexed where required.
Turning to the next steps, the motion before the House is to endorse the recommendations of the Joint Commission and agree the change to the response function and the revised mandate to the works. Secondary legislation will be required to give effect to some of these decisions. So over the next year options will be reviewed, and a strategic case will be presented to the House in 2023. It is important for Members to understand that the House is not being asked for a decision on decant or costs today. Members will be consulted, and will have opportunities to engage with the decision making, and the House will need to take future decisions on these issues at a later date. In the meantime, the Commissions have endorsed a pragmatic approach that will allow work to be undertaken in the interim.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
This is a critically important point. The Leader of the House has said that an outline business case will be presented, with options, in 2023. Following that, can he tell the House when a contract to start the work is likely to take place—that it is likely to take place in this Parliament? That would make it less likely that a following Parliament would alter the decision?
Mark Spencer
That clearly would be the ambition—to try and get on with that as soon as possible, but there is lots of other work that we can get on with in the meantime. For example, there is a plan to renovate the Victoria Tower at the other end of this building. That was going to be left until the restoration and renewal project was fully under way, but under this model we shall be able to get on with that much more quickly, and make sure that that masonry is secure and in place for future generations.
Let me turn to amendment (b) tabled by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and others. To be clear, the House is not being asked for a decision on decant today: the extent to which the House should move is ultimately for Members to consider. The report does not make a recommendation on length, the moves or location, nor does anything in the motion or Commissions’ report predetermine any outcome. So we may well end up in the place advocated in amendment (b). However, I am asking the House today not to bind the hands of those who are looking at this—to give them a free hand to go and consider these things in a timely way and to come back with a very firm and clear plan.
The intrusive surveys, which are nearing completion, will offer us a clearer view of the condition of the House. The proposed amendment would further tie our hands and require us to make a decision on the basis of incomplete information and evidence. Let us allow the Delivery Authority to do its job and complete the intrusive survey, then take the decision on decant informed by the evidence in 2023, as originally planned. In my view, the state of the building is such that a period of decant will be required, but unlike some hon. Members, I do not wish to pre-emptively decide on a timeframe.
Many Members will agree with the spirit of this amendment. The Commissioners present will hear what Members say during the debate, and I hope their views will be taken on board as we move forward. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends not to press the amendment. This is not the time to commit the House or to bind the Commissions’ hands. I hope that we can join together and move forward. The Commissions have unanimously agreed to propose a new way forward, one that allows us to balance our requirements of a working legislature and our responsibility to take decisions appropriate to the economic context in which we find ourselves today. I bring this motion to the House on behalf of the Commissions.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
First, I want to note an interest, in that I am on the sponsor board; I have been the SNP’s delegate to it for a hugely long time now. I must apologise for the fact that I am not my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who is unfortunately on Committee business and cannot be here, so Members are stuck with me. I will do my best—probably not with quite the flair that he would normally bring to this—to fill his shoes in some way.
I agree with the point that the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) just made. The fact that we are here—that this position has been reached—is indefensible. The SNP’s position has been that this is an absolutely horrible building to work in. It is dreadful for our staff, it is a grim place to work and it is not a nice working environment. As a result of that, of the colossal amount of money involved and of the fact that we do not want to be here—we are going to be an independent country, and we are going to toddle off and leave yous to it—we suggested that if others were going to do anything with restoration and renewal, they should build a new Parliament. That will cost far less money than anything they could possibly do with this one. For our staff and people who work in this building, and for future MPs and staff who work in this building, it would be a significantly better and safer working environment. However, that was rejected.
We agreed an Act of Parliament—an Act of Parliament —about how this was going to work. The Act said, “Right, we’re going to have a sponsor board and a Sponsor Body, and we’re going to have a delivery board and a Delivery Authority. We’re going to have all of those things, and they are all going to work together in a groove and deliver what the House has said they are going to deliver.” The Sponsor Body, led by the sponsor board, came up with the memorandum of understanding between the Sponsor Body and the House, and that huge and massively detailed document explained exactly how things would work.
It feels as though the House of Commons Commission —although not so much the Lords one—and successive Leaders of the House gave argued at every opportunity about how this was going to work. They have said, “Actually, we don’t really agree with the Act of Parliament. We need to do this differently.” It feels as though those on the Government Front Bench and, at times, other Members on the House of Commons Commission—this must have been the case—have ended up costing more and more by adding on so many extra things, coming up with new stipulations and having us do ridiculous surveys.
One of those surveys was about making this bit of the House into a bubble so that we could continue to work in it, walking here from Portcullis House with hard hats and boots on, which I do not think anybody would have much enjoyed. This would have been a bubble where we could have continued to meet, because key people cannot bear to leave this awful, leaking room that is too small for 650 MPs to sit in. If this is going to happen, and we do not agree that it should, nobody could do it in a more cack-handed way than the way it is being done.
This structure was agreed and set up by the Houses, and at every opportunity the Government and others have tried to dismantle the structure and then complained because it cost too much money. Of course it will continue to cost money if people keep moving the goalposts—if they do not really want disabled access, but they just said that in an Act of Parliament, and if they are going to complain when the Sponsor Body pitches up and says, “This is how much it will cost to have disabled access.” If they do not want it, of course what they to try to deliver is not going to suit the House. The governing structures have not worked because the Commissions want one thing, the pre-2019 Members of Parliament wanted a different thing from the post-2019 MPs, the Speaker wants something different, the Leaders of the House have wanted something different, and the sponsor board and Sponsor Body have been trying to serve all those masters, and it has proved to be impossible.
The new structure that the Leader of the House suggests will have exactly the same problems as the previous one. It will have exactly the same number of people suggesting they are the right person to make all the decisions, and that person is going to change on a regular basis—even if it only changes once in every five years, that is still on a regular basis. Ever more money will be expended while bits of masonry continue to fall off, while asbestos continues to be in this building and while the fire risk continues to be massive for a UNESCO world heritage site. This building is a relic; it is not a suitable, appropriate working environment.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I apologise to the hon. Lady for stopping her in full rant, but does she not appreciate that this is a UNESCO world heritage site and a grade 1 listed building, and whether we are in this Parliament or not, this Parliament has a responsibility to maintain it properly? How does she answer that?
Kirsty Blackman
Maintaining this building properly, making it safe and making it so it does not burn down is a very different thing from making it safe so it does not burn down while thousands of people work here. The majority of the fire incidents here are caused by issues with people, as are many of the safety issues. If we take the people out of the equation, it is significantly cheaper to do all that; if we only have disabled access visitor routes, we take away a huge amount of the risk that is created. We could rip out almost all the services that go up and down the vertical risers if we did not need to keep them because we need internet in office T306. Clearly, we would not need internet in office T306 if there was nobody working in this place.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
What does the hon. Lady envisage this building would become? Would it just become an empty shell, in which case it would certainly deteriorate quite quickly? What alternative use does she envisage for it?
Kirsty Blackman
Honestly, I do not really care: I am going to be out of here, the Scottish National party is going to be out of here, Scotland is not going to have any stake in this building, and the UK without Scotland can decide what it wants to do with the building. It is not my responsibility to make that decision; it is the responsibility of the people who will carry on being here after Scottish independence. I am not trying to dodge the question; I am just not fussed, as it is not my decision. Just as I am not really fussed about what happens with council tax rates in England, it is not my decision to make. It is the hon. Gentleman’s decision to make, and it is for the people who will be here to decide what this building should be used for in the future.
I am testing your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, as I have spoken for a bit longer than I had intended. I do not think this has been done well; in fact, I do not think it could have been done worse. I do not think what is being proposed is going to fix the issues, and in the meantime our staff, House staff and MPs are all working in a very substandard, dangerous working environment, and that is totally and completely unacceptable.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to catch your eye in this debate. May I say straightaway that although the Leader of the House has come in for criticism today, he has only been Leader of the House for a short time? He is having to answer for the mistakes of the past, but he now has a huge weight on his shoulders because he can rescue the project, get it on the right path and get work started, for all the many reasons that we have heard today. I draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as a chartered surveyor. I was able to articulate my views more fully in my Westminster Hall debate last Thursday.
This debate could not be more timely, given yesterday’s water leak in the Chamber. That was the second time in not many years that we have had a leak in the Chamber; the previous leak was in the Press Gallery. Small fires are reported virtually every month in this place, and it is only because of the diligence and hard work of the staff who patrol on a virtually 24-hour fire watch that nothing more serious has happened. There was also an asbestos leak in Speaker’s House last year, with an impact on more than 100 construction workers.
As I said to the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), we are obliged to protect and preserve this UNESCO world heritage site—a grade I listed building with more than 900 years of political history—for our country. I fear that we are leaving the building at risk of a much larger failure than a leak in the roof, which would inevitably involve our having to move out of Parliament and would leave us all looking rather stupid for not having taken major action more quickly.
The project’s cost is estimated by several experts as approximately £10 billion—somewhere between the £8.77 billion cost of the Olympics and the £18.25 billion cost of Crossrail. It is a vast and complex project. I know such projects only too well from my role as deputy Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and a member of the Finance Committee. I am glad that the Chairs of those Committees, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) and the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown), are present; they both do a splendid job. On almost a weekly basis, we see large Government projects that end up costing hundreds of millions of pounds more than anticipated. The Ajax defence vehicle project, for example, has already cost £3.2 billion, has not delivered a single workable vehicle and is more than 10 years late. My fear is that the restoration and renewal project could go the same way. Governance on such large projects is paramount to ensuring that they are delivered on time and on budget.
When the Sponsor Body gave figures to the Commissions, the cheapest plan involved a full decant of the Palace of Westminster for between 10 and 20 years, with work costing in the region of £7 billion to £13 billion. The suggestion it came up with that would have taken the longest was for the project to be done on a continuous basis, with the Houses remaining in both Chambers. That option would have cost a staggering £11 billion to £22 billion and would have taken somewhere in the region of 46 to 70 years. The Commissions took fright and decided that the Sponsor Body should be immediately abolished and replaced with a joint department of both Houses.
The problem with that is exactly the one that has happened in past projects. The Elizabeth Tower, which has ended up costing almost three times what was estimated; the purchase of parliamentary buildings, which have cost more than £100 million each and a great deal to exit—all these projects have been overseen by the present in-house incumbents. What is to suggest that R&R would be managed any differently? What is to suggest that it would not end up costing billions of pounds more and taking many years longer than it needs to?
In contemplation of the new joint department of the two Houses, an expert panel has been appointed. As I have said, it should be enshrined in statute so that it can continue to give advice. The new budget should not be subsumed into the main vote on the House of Commons; it should be entirely separate, so that this House can monitor it properly and see how much the cost is on an ongoing basis, in a similar way to the quarterly reports that we get from HS2.
I should warn the House that during a Public Accounts Committee hearing in March, the chief executive, David Goldstone—who knows a thing or two, having managed the Olympic project—was questioned about what the continued presence assessment had found in relation to the building. He said:
“The conclusion it came to is that, in effect, it is technically possible to do it but, consistent with all previous work on this subject, it would take an enormously longer time, would cost an awful lot more and”—
this is the key point; these are his words, not mine—
“would create extraordinary risks in relation to health and safety and fire safety…The risk of disruption is very significant as well.”
If we take all that advice into account, it should be possible to come up with some well-informed costings and outlines of a plan of operation showing how long we need to decant, whether the whole project can be done as one, and whether, if it cannot, it can be done in two halves so that parliamentarians can stay in one House or the other.
I think there is a real and evident danger that the proposed joint department, which will in effect be the “client”, will not give clear instructions to the Delivery Authority. There will always be the temptation for it to be constantly involved in mission creeps, adding the latest bells and whistles to the project, but, beyond that, it will be continually changing its mind. The Leader of the House presaged exactly that possibility this evening in his speech, and how is that compatible with what he said about wanting to provide the very best value for money?
We in the Public Accounts Committee know full well that big projects do go wrong when the client changes its mind. There is a big risk of that with the new joint department, because the composition of the House will change after each general election, as, no doubt, will the composition of the Commissions. There is therefore a real risk that the Commissions will change their mind and want to alter the remit yet again.
We owe it to the next generation to grip this problem today and sort it out once and for all, otherwise the next generation will not thank us.
Business of the House
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Mark Spencer
I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his place. It is a pleasure to be able to accommodate him on Monday. He is twice the man of the usual SNP spokesman, I think the House will agree. I am grateful to him for his comments about Keith Palmer and for once again expressing the unity across the House in our response to Russia.
The hon. Gentleman talks about the Government’s approach to tackling poverty and he is right to do that. I hope he recognises that the best way out of poverty is through work and for that work to pay, and for those people who are in employment to pay as little tax as possible. That is what the Chancellor set out yesterday when he reduced the amount of tax for those in the lowest paid employment. In previous Budgets, he set out a reduction in the taper levels for universal credit, so people retain more of their income. That is the right approach to fiscal responsibility and to ensuring the economy continues to grow, so that we can afford to pay people who are in employment more money and they can retain more of their wages. That is the right way to approach people working their way out of poverty and we are making great progress in that direction.
The hon. Gentleman went on to talk about refugees and made reference to the airplane with the children on, which I hope has now landed. I congratulate him on his role in securing that safe flight for those individuals. Of course, there is more we can do and we continue to do more. We in the United Kingdom are actually one of the most generous nations in the world when it comes to supporting refugees. We have an excellent programme, which is available to support as many people as possible coming here. We are opening up to nearly 100,000 school- children, who will receive support through the education system. At the same time, we also have a great package of humanitarian support, as well as military support, going to Ukraine, and I think that is the right balance. We are playing our part and we are leading the international community in doing that.
The hon. Gentleman made reference to a debate on the armed forces on Monday, which I think we have granted. I thank him for his questions.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
The Leader of the House will be aware that the joint Commissions—the House of Lords Commission and the House of Commons Commission—in their meeting on 17 March on restoration and renewal, decided yet again to employ more consultants. Surely, whether one wants to decant or not, what we ought to do in this House is make up our mind what we want to do. It is costing us £100 million every year we delay and it is costing us £130 million every year in maintenance. Will the Leader of the House please provide for a debate in Government time, so that we can debate the whole matter of this huge project and try to find a sensible way forward?
Mark Spencer
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Restoration and renewal has always been a parliamentary programme and it remains so. It is for Parliament to decide how the programme evolves. We have stressed throughout that there can be no blank cheque for this work. That is why the Commission was concerned when in January it considered estimates ranging from £7 billion to £13 billion and decanting for between 12 years and 20 years. Both Commissions have therefore taken an initial decision to change the sponsor function. This is, of course, a House matter and the Government will seek to facilitate bringing that and other related decisions to the House for consideration once the Commission has completed further work on the proposed approach.
Virtual Participation in Debate
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(3 years, 12 months ago)
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Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
I have been in touch with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan), who is in one of the extremely vulnerable categories. She is watching the debate remotely, getting more and more demoralised about it. She has asked me to plead with the House to pass the motion unamended, because she has not been able to take part in debates since March, and it is likely that she will be unable to take part in debates until next March, which is simply not fair. Let the most vulnerable people take part in debates, then fight the other battles another time.
Karen Bradley
I, too, want my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) and many other clinically extremely vulnerable colleagues to be able to take part in debates, but the amendment does not preclude their doing so. It allows them and others to take part in those debates. I want to see my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), who secured an urgent question last week, taking part in debates as well. I want as many Members as possible to take part in debates. This has been going on for far too long. About a quarter of Members are currently availing themselves of the ability to participate virtually in scrutiny proceedings: questions, UQs and statements. Not all of them are clinically extremely vulnerable, but they need to be allowed to take part in debates. We will have been going for 12 months by the end of March, and not to have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay in a debate in that time I consider inappropriate and not fair on him. He is working incredibly hard, and he needs to be able to participate.
I should also like to raise the case of our hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant), who has been texting me during the debate and has asked me to mention him. If he were here he would be speaking, but he cannot be here. He would love to take part in this debate down the line. He would love to take part virtually, but he cannot do so—he is not allowed.
Karen Bradley
The hon. Lady is right. Select Committees, of which we are both Chairs, have conducted their business virtually, with some physical proceedings to take evidence. She and I have both chaired meetings from Committee Rooms, but we have managed, as have all Select Committees, to take evidence, to work and to produce numerous reports on the basis of virtual participation, which includes all Members. Nobody has not been allowed to take part because their situation means that they cannot get a doctor’s note. Every single member of every Committee has been able to play a full part in the Committee. I do not understand why, on a matter of House business, the Government are determined to prevent that from happening.
Members spend years getting elected to this place. People give up their careers, and they lose their families in far too many cases. They do incredible work to get to this place. As an MP, I want to be in this place—I want to be here. There are Members who cannot be here at the moment, but they want to work. They want to have the chance to carry on their work and to be heard.
As I said, this is about the view of the House. I know that my hon. Friend the Deputy Chief Whip would never do this, but if proxy votes were used inappropriately —if a Member’s proxy vote ends up being cast in a Lobby that they would not want it to be cast in because they did not know this debate was coming, or if a Member is not here because they saw the business and were happy to believe that there would not be any votes—it would be a great shame. It will cause resentment, I suspect, if the motion goes through without a proper vote by all Members.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I am going to try again. This is a really sensitive matter for those who are extremely vulnerable. Why do we not let this motion go through tonight—it will fall if it is not passed by 7 o’clock—at least to give those very few Members the chance to participate in our debates? We can have the argument another day about the wider remit, but let us get this motion through tonight. I will be supporting the Government.
Karen Bradley
I will be sitting down shortly. I wanted to ensure that I took interventions because I know that many Members who were not here for the start of the debate will not be able to catch the eye of the Deputy Speaker, or possibly even the Speaker, due to the rules that apply to this debate, which are different from those of other debates with call lists and so on. This was a surprise debate—none of us thought that it was happening —so I wanted to ensure that Members had the chance to speak. I say to my hon. Friend again that I really want to see the motion go through, but I want it to go through amended so that all our hon. and right hon. Friends can take part in the debates. I really do not see why there is a problem with ensuring that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham can take part in debates, and I have fought like he would not believe to ensure that she can do so, but I also want my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay to take part in debates, because I want to hear from them both on these matters.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I simply remind the House that this motion will fall at 7 o’clock. Let us at least have half a loaf if we cannot get the whole loaf, and enable those very vulnerable people to participate in our debates.
Karen Bradley
As I say, I will sit down shortly, because I want to make sure that the amendment can be moved and that we have time for the vote, but I urge my hon. Friend to consider voting for the amendment, because that will mean that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham and my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay will be able to vote and speak.
Chris Bryant
I will come on to that point later, but there is a prior point which is really important. It is vital to the way we do our business as a Parliament that we have some business which is not subject to the Whip. Obviously, there are conscience clauses. One could argue that every single vote we ever cast in Parliament is a conscience clause, but there are specific matters that have historically been treated in the House as conscience clauses, such as abortion, gay marriage and so on. Traditionally, there has been a very strong view that when it comes to how the House does its own business and orders things, it is not a matter for the Whips.
Now, some of my best friends are Whips. Some of my very best friends are Whips. [Interruption.] Yes, all right, some of my next-door neighbours are Whips. They play an absolutely vital role in enabling the business of the House to proceed. They are therefore, in the main, for the greater convenience of the House. However, there is some business that we should just decide, because in our own conscience, out of our own thinking, that is what we have decided. I think that this matter, in the middle of a pandemic, really should be a matter where our own personal decision is the only thing that counts. It seems odd to me that we have ended up in a situation where a Government Whip can have more than 240 proxy votes—the Opposition Whip, too—yet lots and lots of people cannot take part in the debate. If anything, it should be the other way around.
I want to come specifically to the Government motion and why I have a problem with it, as it is worded. First of all, it says we must be
“certified by a medical practitioner”.
Frankly, I think medical practitioners have better things to do at the moment than to be signing people off as “clinically extremely vulnerable”. Secondly, the idea that we should have to present some kind of certificate—I do not know in what form—presumably to you, Mr Speaker, to prove that somebody has been certified as clinical extremely vulnerable by a medical practitioner, puts you in an invidious position, because you have then to decide. Effectively, you become the doctor of the House, deciding whether people are or are not clinically extremely vulnerable. I do not have any problem with all those people who are clinically extremely vulnerable taking part in debates. I think they should have been allowed to do so for some time already. I am not upset about saying that I have had several letters from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care telling me that I should be shielding—I am not sure whether this is his way of trying to prevent me from taking part in debates. He is not directly addressing this to me—as far as he knows, it has gone out to 300,000 people, or whatever —but the truth is that my doctor says that I am not clinically extremely vulnerable and there is no need for me to shield, not least because I completed my treatment for my cancer back in February. I just think that this is an inappropriate way of us dealing with Members.
The second point is that there are many people who have responsibilities for other people in their households for all sorts of different reasons, as many and as various as the stars in the sky, no doubt. I simply think that it is invidious, therefore, to draw the line in one particular place. I say to the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown)—he knows I have enormous respect for him—that, on this occasion, I just think that it would be perfectly simple for him to vote for the amendment and then we would be able to get both the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) and the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) able to participate in debates.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I am grateful to the hon. Member, who I also have a lot of respect for. I say to him gently again that if he withdrew his amendment tonight and let the motion go through as the Government have tabled it, at least the most clinically extremely vulnerable would be able to participate—they have not been able to participate since March—and then we could have his battle with the Government on another day. We have had two hours to debate this subject; it will fall at 7 o’clock.
Chris Bryant
I sympathise with the argument. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham has expressed that argument to me. The problem is that the only people who have responsibility for the way we do our business this evening are the Government. The only people who can grant us time to have a row on another day and allow other people are the Government. So far, what we have seen over the last two weeks is that they are passionately, adamantinely opposed to allowing a further extension of people, so the only moment at which we can possibly insist is this moment.
I have heard the argument, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”—I have heard it so many times in my life and sometimes I have even made it myself. I made it myself, oddly, on the issue of gay marriage, because I said to Members in my party, “Let’s just go with having civil partnerships, because maybe the country won’t wear gay marriage.” Lots of people, quite rightly, metaphorically slapped me in the face and said, “You’re an idiot. You simply don’t know where history is going.” So I say to hon. Members tonight: the perfect is within your grasp. Vote for the amendment and the whole motion will go through as amended, and we will be happy. The Government could say now, having heard so many Conservative colleagues and others in the House say that they would like to take part in debates, that they are going to accept the amendment.
Chris Bryant
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and all sorts of organisations have been doing this perfectly well, fully engaging all their members and enabling them to take part. Members might say that it is more difficult for people to travel, but sometimes some Members in the House forget that the travel is as risky as the business of actually physically being in Parliament. Mr Speaker, you and all the staff in the building have done a phenomenal job in making this place as covid-secure as possible.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can you advise the House that, if this debate goes up to 7 o’clock, the motion will fall? Would it therefore not be prudent of the House to cease this debate now so that at least we can have a vote and thus protect those Members who are extremely clinically vulnerable?
Restoration and Renewal
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Valerie Vaz
I am a lot of things but I am not a prophet and I cannot see into the future. I cannot see into the minds of the Sponsor Body, much as I would like to, because I am sure I would be of great help to the House. I am just coming on to that in a second.
There is the challenge panel, which is interesting. I have a list of the hon. Members and various people on the challenge panel, but I cannot see on there a single member from the Opposition parties. We have a strategic adviser to the Prime Minister and various other people, but I cannot see where Opposition Members—any of the Opposition—can have their view heard on the challenge panel. It is good that Sir David Higgins is on there, because he ran a very successful campaign to deliver the Olympics. I had the privilege of interviewing him when I was on the House Governance Committee and I know that he is very conscious of how to have an end to a project. He talked about Gantt charts and proper schedules. It was different with the Olympic Delivery Authority because there was an end date, but I am sure the Sponsor Body can come to some conclusion on how we come to the end of the project.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way. Is not the important point about the exchange that has just taken place that the Sponsor Body should be completely free to come up with a number of totally good options, from full decant to no decant at all, and then, as a result of that, come up with a properly costed project that Parliament can either accept or reject in a vote in 2022?
Valerie Vaz
As with any body of the House, the Sponsor Body will listen to what hon. Members say in the debate today and make up its own mind. I cannot tell it what to do. I do not even have a voice on the Sponsor Body, but other people do and, as they have set out very clearly, they will listen to hon. Members’ views until 7 August. Right hon. and hon. Members should feed into that.
The review will enable us to continue with progress ,and the Sponsor Body is in the process of updating the costings. The costings were undertaken some time ago, so it is right that it should do that. Before the work, we will vote on the outline business case, as the Leader of the House said, but that has already been pushed back to 2022.
As right hon. and hon. Members have said in previous debates, and in the debate in which we voted for a full decant, the project will be about the whole country benefiting from the heritage, and from utilising the skills and crafts of the whole country. There will be no blacklisting and there will be an upskilling of our diverse workforce. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will see that this is preserving the home of our democracy for over 1,000 years and for generations to come.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Madam Deputy Speaker, I am delighted to catch your eye in this debate. My remarks will be made with some trepidation, because the Chairman of the Finance Committee and the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee are in the Chamber. I have been a member of both Committees for about a decade; I have been a long-serving member. I also draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as a chartered surveyor. So I have lived with this problem long before it even arose and I have seen the decaying state of the Palace of Westminster.
In his excellent speech, the Leader of the House might have made the point that we are only trustees of this place. We are here for the present generation, but, above all, we are here for future generations. Why are we here? We are here to remind everybody that this is the home of our democracy. It is our history. It needs to remind us that our forebears went to war twice to preserve our way of life and democracy. I caution colleagues about indulging in the argument that we are spending money on ourselves. We are not; we are spending money to preserve our democracy.
This is one of the most important and iconic buildings in the world and, as others have said, it is a UNESCO world heritage site, which we are legally obliged to maintain in good condition. The standard of maintenance over the past few years has got worse and worse, as everybody can see. We only have to look around the Palace to see the amount of scaffolding, large quantities of which are because there is falling masonry. As one of the former Leaders of the House said, it is a wonder that mercifully so far nobody has been hurt or seriously injured by falling masonry. We need to do something about the maintenance of this place.
The Elizabeth Tower project has proved, largely for the reasons that the former Chair of the Finance Committee gave, that the authorities in charge of the maintenance of these buildings are not very good at planning big projects, and that is why it is absolutely right that the Sponsor Body and the Delivery Board were set up by Members of Parliament.
We must learn from history. The National Audit Office report makes it clear that the completion of renewal in 1870 was 18 years late and three times over budget. We must not make those mistakes again. The Sponsor Body started in shadow form, and then was made substantive on 8 April 2020 by the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Act 2019. It is going to make an interim report, supposedly by the end of September, and we should not do anything to fetter any of the options. I want it completely freely to come out, with all the options and an indicative cost, and then leave Parliament, the Government and the staff in this place and everybody else to make their judgment as to what is the right thing to do.
However, there is no point doing all that unless all the stakeholders buy in to what we are doing. Part of the reason we are here, eight years after this project was originally proposed, is that the stakeholders in general—the 650 Members of Parliament, the 800 peers, the thousands of staff in this place and, above all, the public—have not yet bought fully into the project. I urge those on the Sponsor Body to extend the 8 August deadline for consultation, have wide publicity as to what we might do and then let the Sponsor Body with all that evidence come up with the best solution. I therefore suggest that we have a longer consultation period.
Having established the optimal way of determining what we want to do, we then have to decide how we do it. As a surveyor, I have been a long-term advocate of a full decant, and I still maintain that the most economical and shortest way of doing this vast project is to fully move out. There is no question about that. However, if the political will and the impact of the covid situation on finance and what the Government want to spend have changed the situation so radically, I have another solution for the House this afternoon: do the project in two halves.
I do not mind about the sequencing, but basically the idea would be to move the House of Commons into the House of Lords and do the restoration on this half. Then when the House of Commons was complete, move us back here and start on the House of Lords. In that way, the House of Lords would move out to the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, which the Government already own. All we would have to do was compensate the contractor there. It would mean that Members of Parliament—the elected House—never actually moved out of this building. All the fears that we might never move back and all the fears that we might lose our traditions and working ways in this House would be largely unfounded, because we would remain in the building for the entire time. It also has the huge benefit that we would not need the decant centre in Richmond House. Indeed, we would not need the Northern Estate at all to do the project—we need it, of course, for Members of Parliament. Richmond House is the controversial bit in terms of planning and what we do with it, but we would not need it. At a stroke, we would save £500 million, as we would need only one decant centre.
I say to the House that we have been discussing this long enough. The Chair of the Finance Committee, the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), makes a really good point: we should not be here debating this subject this afternoon. There are so many issues of national importance. I do not want to be here in another year or two’s time still debating what we should do. I want to be here in 2022 voting on a precise proposal to allow the Sponsor Body to get on with the work. The time for talking is nearly over. We need action if nobody is going to be killed because of poor maintenance of the Palace.
Chris Bryant
I do not think there was a slight question mark. It was absolutely clear that the Lords would not move out merely so as to accommodate the Commons sitting in the House of Lords.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I did make it very clear in my speech that my preferred option was a full decant, but the world has changed as a result of covid. This is a different Parliament. The political imperative is different now, and I still say, as a surveyor, that it would be possible to do it in two halves.
Chris Bryant
Well, all the advice we were given was that, as an engineering feat, it would dramatically add to the cost, it would significantly add to the risk of a catastrophic failure to the building, and it would increase the danger to the staff working either as contractors or as Clerks and others working in the building. On all three counts, the imperative still lies with the hon. Gentleman’s preference, and I am right behind his preference on this.
There are some things that have not changed since the 19th century. The Leader of the House rightly referred to Caroline Shenton, who wrote two books. The first was about the fire and the second was about Mr Barry’s war. The latter makes it absolutely clear that the biggest problem for Barry and Pugin was not the River Thames or the drainage system, it was MPs and peers who stayed on site and were constantly meddling. Governments kept on changing their mind about whether it was a Government project or not, and that dramatically added to how long it took to get the Commons back in. It was not until 1850 that the Commons was back in, and then all the MPs hated it and demanded changes, so Barry said he would never step inside the place again.
We focus on the risk, and the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) said earlier that the cost is terrible and there are risks. That is true, but there are also significant opportunities here. This building is now wholly inappropriate for anybody with any kind of disability. We often focus on those who need a wheelchair, and it is true that it is catastrophically difficult to get around the building in a wheelchair, but it is very dark as well. The most common form of disability is poor eyesight, and many people simply cannot use the building for that reason.
We need a building that is better attuned to today’s democracy, so that the public can come in more readily and easily to understand our business than the present Chamber allows. The archives are very badly kept at the moment, not for lack of will from the staff working there, but simply because the Victoria Tower simply cannot accommodate the facilities that we need in the modern era. We also do not have an education space that will last beyond another couple of years, because it only has 10 years from Westminster City Council.
My final point is that we should be seeing this as a training and employment opportunity for the whole country. If this infrastructure project is to succeed, we will have to have people coming from every constituency in the land, learning trades that they have never had, whether that is in encaustic tiles or wood panelling, as well as modern technology. We should see that as an opportunity. My fear is that we will keep on shilly-shallying and call for endless reviews, more papers and more consideration. The danger is that we will fail in our duty to this building. I think that there should be an eighth deadly sin for a Government Minister: procrastination.
Business of the House
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Mr Speaker, I , too, welcome your measures to try to keep all the staff and ourselves safe in this House.
We are to go into recess some time in the near future. We do not know what is going to happen over the next few weeks, but undoubtedly there will be problems in all our constituencies. May I ask the Leader of the House to urge all his Front-Bench colleagues to treat any queries from any of us as if the House was sitting and with the urgency that they need to be dealt with?
Mr Rees-Mogg
Mr Speaker, may I refer to your statement, which, I think, gave the House very good advice? We, as right hon. and hon. Members, need to consider what is urgent and pressing and needs raising with Ministers and what is routine and can wait until after this crisis is solved. It is of the greatest importance that urgent messages get through and are not swamped by routine messages that we would usually be passing on to try to seek high-level responses. Self-denial by us will help Ministers to ensure that the right responses are given to the most urgent items.