Restoration and Renewal

Lord Carter of Coles Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carter of Coles (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the new mandate because clearly the existing arrangements are not working. In fact, they have been a shambles.

I have had a ringside seat as a member of the sponsorship board. I have watched with great interest as the board tried to be true to the 2019 Act while facing the Government and the House authorities working to a totally different agenda. We therefore had stasis with no progress. It was sad to watch both parties spending a great deal of time talking past each other and spending money trying to prove different points, none of which had any grounds.

We could change the governance structure. The old adage is, “We have failed, we have reorganised and we have tried again”, but we must hang on to the fundamentals of the great challenges that we face. It will be interesting to hear in the response how we intend to organise to ensure that we are sticking with the things that we decide to do. There have always been three great challenges: what to do, how to do it and what we are prepared to spend on it. We have to get those questions nailed down. The delivery authority will bring forward proposals on that which will undoubtedly be well worked up.

When these great projects start, there is widespread consultation and everyone is asked what they would like. You build up an enormous wish list; I think the noble Lord, Lord Newby, described it as luxurious while others have described it as gold-plated. You inevitably end up with a long list of desirable things, and anyone involved in great projects knows that that is the moment when you have to edit. You have to seek to build a consensus about what you want to do and that has notably failed to be done. One of the most critical elements of the new structure will be to get people to sit down and agree what they are going to do. Will there be compromises on aspects such as access or security?

Are we really going to build something in here fit for the 21st century? We might want to consider the wisdom of trying to put a 21st-century future-proofed building into a mid-19th-century shell. That will cost a huge amount of money; maybe we should think a little around the edges of that.

On the question of how, other noble Lords have referred to what to do about full decant. That has been a subject of disagreement, the question that has most poisoned the progress of this scheme. We know that the two bookends were full decant at one end and significant continued presence at the other. The delivery authority is going to look at different proposals but—to dwell for a moment on continued presence—many of us who walk around the building, including underground, will realise how hard it will be to rebuild this thing if it is occupied. The estimates are that the most money we could spend, given the constraints of the building, would be in the low hundreds of millions a year. We cannot spend any more money if people are in the building. We might therefore end up with work lasting for 30, 40 or 50 years, and in that time there would be noise and dust as well as discomfort, not only to Members but to staff and visitors.

We therefore need to see a much more flexible approach—some form of decant. This will not work without decant to some degree. Again, though, we come to the central point: we need to get an agreement. We have had position-taking on this that has lasted years and people have not come together to get an answer. With the new arrangement, it is critical to sit down and decide, first, what we are going to do; secondly, how we shall do it, and settle that; and, thirdly, to settle the money.

I wondered the other day whether, when the joint commission came forward with its number of £3.54 billion for the scheme, if it had known at that point that the figure would be nearer £10 billion or even £13 billion, it would have proposed it. Other noble Lords have referred to the public being in support of this proposal, but we need to be aware of the climate. With Covid around the corner, would people have said, “We are prepared to spend £10 billion”, at that point? We need to find out what it costs—and find out quickly—but we can do that only when we know what we want to do, and we have dithered. Having found that out, we know the cost. We then come to the question of affordability: can we afford it and are we prepared to spend it? That is where the Government come in. We cannot plot our way forward in this unless the Government come forward very clearly and say what they are prepared to spend and what they are prepared to commit to spending in years A, B, C and D. We need to get that very clear.

It is right to have a reset. We need a new degree of pragmatism. Things are going to change continuously. I would be very keen to hear what the governance oversight arrangements are going to be. How will Parliament know? What are the milestones? What are we expecting to be delivered and when? How are we going to keep our eye on that? Reassurance will be critical but above all, like other noble Lords, I believe the key now is to use the reset to get speed into this. We are living on borrowed time, and it would be very sad if we did not take this opportunity to get on with things a great deal faster.