Restoration and Renewal

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Blunkett]

“As an amendment to the above motion, at the end insert:

“(5) reaffirms its commitment that the client function for the Restoration and Renewal programme, in the form of the new joint department, must have regard to

(a) the need to ensure that—

(i) any place in which either House of Parliament is located while the Parliamentary building works are carried out; and

(ii) (after completion of those works) all parts of the Palace of Westminster used by people working in it or open to people visiting it, are accessible to people with disabilities;

(b) the need to ensure that the Parliamentary building works are carried out with a view to facilitating improved public engagement with Parliament and participation in the democratic process (especially by means of remote access to Parliament’s educational and outreach facilities and programmes); and

(c) the need to ensure that opportunities to secure economic or other benefits of the Parliamentary building works are available in all areas of the United Kingdom.”

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving the amendment in my name on the Order Paper, I wish to indicate a debt of gratitude to all those who have strived to find a way forward, from the original Joint Committee back in 2016, the sponsor board and the sponsor body to the staff at every level who have done their best to try and move this on over the last six years.

Many people will have read Mr Barry’s War—and if you have not, I recommend it—which indicates why I am concerned, and why I believe others should be, in relation to the Motion. I shall not like other Members today oppose the Motion, because I understand the politics behind it, but as spelt out in Mr Barry’s War, it was precisely the constant political interference in decision-making, back in the late 1830s, that messed up the original construction that we are endeavouring to protect today. I say to the Leader of the House, and I will come to the comments at the beginning of her speech in a moment, that we need to learn from history rather than live in it. We need to understand what went wrong years ago when restoration and some form of renewal were undertaken and to take into account the wise words of those who struggled then to get the seat of our democracy, our Parliament as it was emerging as a democracy, into a fit state—for them, for the 19th century and now, two more centuries on, for the 21st century.

I say that because the noble Baroness the Leader of the House referred to paragraph 22 and the new mandate. It is not just the mandate that concerns me. It is the level of ambition, and the understanding of where we are and what we need to do. There are those of us who would like to see, in a sensible and rational fashion, a complete review of how this Parliament operates, and its relationship to our wider democracy, which is deeply under threat—I do not mean just from the chaos emanating from Downing Street; I mean the vision that people are talking about in the western world, about how fragile our democracy is at the moment. I refer to the interesting and wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, over the last few days. We live in a very fragile environment.

The image of what we are trying to do, in putting the building right, needs to be matched by what we should be doing in putting our democracy right. At the centre of the democracy are this House and the other House. Unless we link the participative democracy in the community with the representative democracy in Parliament, and we take seriously how the construction and reconstruction of this building can contribute to that, both in its imagery and therefore its example, but also in its outreach which is mentioned in my amendment, we will get this very badly wrong.

I believe, as do many others—in fact, two amendments were put down in the other House yesterday and then withdrawn—that we need an ambitious programme that will lead us to a situation where, in 50 years’ time, people will be proud of this generation rather than asking the same old question: “Why didn’t they have the foresight to get it right? Why did they pass it on to us to botch up what they botched out in the first place?” That would be a terrible outcome.

What happened earlier this week in the Chamber of the House of Commons, when water came through the roof and the House had to temporarily adjourn, is almost a metaphor. I will not make any remarks about the new definition of drips in the other place because it would be deeply offensive, but honestly, that indicates both the urgent action we need, which the noble Baroness spelled out, and an understanding of what we are trying to achieve in putting it right.

I come to my amendment—noble Lords will forgive me if I run slightly over time. The reason why I am both concerned and so emotional about this goes back to the summer of 2019, following the joint scrutiny committee on the Bill on which I served. Incidentally, I thought that would be the most boring period of my parliamentary and political life, but it was not: it was an eye-opener, including the ridiculous arguments, which were eventually unlocked by then Leader of the Commons, the right honourable Andrea Leadsom, that a car park at the Ministry of Defence could not be used for temporary buildings and materials. We have staggered from one calamitous nonsense to another. It is important that, even with what I think is a flawed way forward, we try to get it right.

One thing that really got me all those years ago was the fact that when the original Bill, which became an Act in 2019, came to this House, it mentioned access for people with disabilities. It talked about access to the building, but it did not talk at all about access within it and therefore the functionality for either parliamentarians or those working in or visiting the building who by necessity would need to get around. That is why, along with the outreach function of making democracy work for the people out there and not just for the people in here, I was so keen to ensure that the amendments before your Lordships today were placed in the Bill in 2019. Such was my keenness that, over the Summer Recess—I pay tribute to the Ministers who were dealing with this at the time and who were prepared to give their time through that recess—I could not be there on the day that my cousin Abigail was buried because I needed to be here to ensure that those amendments were put forward and carried. That is why I am emotional about this.

I ask the noble Baroness not to take it for granted that everyone agrees that access and other key issues will be taken into account in years to come, unless we are crystal clear. I quote, for instance, the words of noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, on 16 May this year on this subject—I have given him notice that I would do this. He said:

“But the reality is that this building’s problem is services, not access or modernisation.”—[Official Report, 16/5/22; col. 245.]


Of course the problem is services, the plumbing, the wiring and the fabric of the building falling down. However, it is also about people—that is what this building and this Parliament are all about.

I would like to have it reinforced by the noble Baroness that nothing in this Motion precludes the implementation of the 2019 Act. Incidentally, the new mandate and the process which she has described are based primarily on ridiculous timescales and estimates of the cost; I say that having had 50-odd years in public life and having seen estimates like this before. We have moved from the ridiculous estimate for the Scottish Parliament, which underestimated grossly what it would cost, to grossly overestimating what it would take to get this right. For instance, the £13 billion that went adrift in fraud, which led the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, to resign at the Dispatch Box, should be compared to the likely cost of making sure that we have a Parliament fit for the late 21st century.

I do not want to hold anyone up. I tell the Whips that I will of course concede this evening, so nobody needs to stay on a hot summer night. But I expect and hope that the Minister will reinforce what she said at the beginning, because otherwise we will drift into a world where future generations will sincerely believe that we let them down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the indications of support from around your Lordships’ House for my amendment. I am particularly grateful to the Leader of the House for her reassurances. I am taking it that the strategic case will be completely aligned with the 2019 Act of Parliament. In light of that—I take the same view as my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon on agonising about how we are progressing but recognising that we have to—and the excellent speech from the noble Lord, Lord Best, I am prepared to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment to the Motion withdrawn.