Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 8th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate all the noble Lords who have got us this far; it has taken a great deal of work over many years. The noble Baroness the Leader of the House mentioned many names and I expect that there are quite a few others. The debate has persuaded me that we need to look separately at the preservation of this building and at what Parliament does and where. As my noble friend Lord Foulkes said, this place could be turned into a very good museum of democracy.

Some noble Lords will have gone to a meeting in Portcullis House several years ago, at which we were first told about the various plans for getting us out of these places—or not, as the case may be. I remember one long-standing Member of the House of Commons, the first to ask a question, said: “Don’t you realise that if we move out of this building, it will be the end of parliamentary democracy?” It is an interesting question, especially now. Maybe we have reached it, maybe we have not, but we need to look at this separately. This is a wonderful building; it could be a museum, as my noble friend said, or we could come back here.

I will talk briefly about two things. The first is the issue of fire, which several noble Lords have spoken about, and the second is access of location. We had a Starred Question on fire in your Lordships’ Chamber about a month ago, after the Notre Dame fire. Subsequently, I had a meeting with some of the officials who do a wonderful job in dealing with fire protection in this building. We have fire detection and sprinklers in the cellar, which is probably the most difficult place, but there are many more problems associated with the roof, not just of Westminster Hall but of these buildings, too. There are three things to look at: detection, extinguishing and evacuation.

It is clear that they are doing pretty well in getting a new system of detection around, even in the roof. Extinguishing fires there is extremely difficult, but the new system, Water Mist, uses much less water and is extremely effective. I suggest that before any construction work starts on this building, a water mist system should be installed for the whole building on a temporary basis, with temporary pipes or whatever. That would be a great protection against a fire during construction. As many noble Lords have said, the biggest risk of fire is during construction. We are a royal palace, and there have already been two royal palaces that have caught fire in the Queen’s reign. However careful everybody is, it can happen, as many noble Lords have said.

If this place is going to be reconstructed as a Parliament, we need to look at evacuation. Have many noble Lords wondered: if the Committee Corridor were completely full of people, which sometimes happens, where is the way out? There is a fire door by the main entrance, but if that is shut because of a fire on the other side, can 1,000 or 2,000 people at the Lords end get out in half an hour—which is apparently the fire resistance of the doors—down two very narrow staircases? It is something to think about. It could happen tomorrow, but if we are rebuilding, we ought at least to ensure that we have proper evacuation facilities, including for people in wheelchairs or with mobility problems, as many noble Lords have said. That all needs to be sorted out before we start.

My final point concerns moving us to the QEII centre, and the Commons to Richmond House. As some noble Lords including my noble friend Lord Foulkes asked, how are we going to get from one to the other, through the mass of tourists that we see, particularly in the summer months? It is not easy. We will certainly not get back in seven minutes to vote, and communications between the House of Lords and the House of Commons will be extremely difficult. I cannot see why nobody has looked properly at the Foreign Office. We do not have an empire, as we did when it was built. I know that the Foreign Office will be loath to get out of their lovely building—maybe we can promise that it can return in 10 years when it is all finished—but at least it would be a bit closer to Richmond House. Maybe there are other buildings as well. We need to make sure that we do not completely separate the Commons and the Lords, because that would not be a good thing at all.

I believe that we should look again at my noble friend Lord Adonis’s suggestion of moving out completely, because in a new building, wherever it is, we could have the education facilities, the public access and everything else that we do not get here. We are rightly concerned about that and it would certainly help the north/south divide if we made everything less London-centric.

Finally, my noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe is very keen that we consider the possibility of selling off the second-hand bits and pieces from this building if they are no longer used. I think that he is talking about the floor tiles that have been replaced over many years; he thinks that he has a market for them as a souvenir of the old House of Commons or House of Lords. He has asked me to say that he will put down an amendment in Committee to support this idea. It will not fund the new building, but I suppose that it might help.