Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal

Lord Haselhurst Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Flello. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on securing this debate and on his telling opening.

I understand that there is enormous attachment to this home of Parliament. That attachment has led to a drift; for at least 20 years, to my knowledge, people have known that something has to be done and have been thinking about what we should do. Every time someone has been brought in, the report has shocked people and they have said, “We can’t do that,” so things have been left for a while. More experts have then been brought in two years later and said, “It’s worse,” and people have said, “Oh, no, we can’t tackle that.” This problem has been getting steadily away from us. It is to the credit of the current administration and those in the House who support it that work is now being done to come to a decisive conclusion. I believe that some of my colleagues are blinded by their attachment to the place into supposing that the problem is not really all that bad somehow, and we can work around it.

During the last Parliament, when I was Chairman of the Administration Committee, I was privy to some of the work that was going on, and I came rapidly to the conclusion that has been reached in similar circumstances by the Parliaments of Austria, Canada and Finland: if a major exercise of this kind has to be done, the only sensible thing for us to do is to get out of the building and let the work be done. Some 12 months of study were undertaken by our colleagues in the other place and in the House of Commons, and having gone into the detail and consulted independent experts, they are persuaded that that approach is right for us, too. Colleagues can rake over the independent options appraisal—they can look at it and play with the figures and estimates as much as they like—but it is crystal clear that option 3 would take less time than option 2, option 2 would take less time than option 1, and in each case, less time means less cost.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned some of the objections, and I will refer to some of those and perhaps others. I have been told that our leaving would deprive some Members of ever serving in this building. There is in fact now a way around that. The timescale is such that it is possible for the work to bridge two Parliaments, so if that is a real problem, it can be overcome. But the honour and responsibility of being elected as a Member of Parliament lies first in doing the job, not in carrying out the job in a particular place or building.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the argument that if we leave, we will not come back. I have heard level-headed people say, “They won’t let us.” Who are the “they” in all this? We are sovereign. We can decide that. Frankly, it is unthinkable that we would not come back to this Palace at the first opportunity. It has also been said that Westminster Hall might be needed for a major state event. I think that we can rely on the fact that the royal household has been consulted and has not blocked what is recommended.

It has been said that an appalling message would be sent out to the world during Brexit, but I think an even more appalling message would be sent if we soldiered on in this place in difficult conditions and there was a catastrophic failure. That really would make it look as though this country and this Parliament were breaking down.

It is said that too much public money is involved. However much we look at them, the alternatives to option 1 are more expensive, but the fact is that the public are solidly behind us on this matter. They love this place and believe it is an important symbol of our democracy. They have been very understanding, as has the press, so if we are responsible about this, we should not worry on that front.

Another objection—in contrast to some of the others—is: “If there is a risk of catastrophic failure, why are we waiting and not getting on with it?” The reason we are not getting on with it is that people have baulked at doing so every time a report has been produced since the 1990s. There has been delay, delay and delay. The risk is mounting. That is the problem. We will do the work as soon as we can, but there have been difficulties to overcome to make the arrangements for it to be approached logically.

I cannot help feeling that the distrust that has manifested in many parts of the world has also manifested here; people want to kick the establishment at every point and think that experts cannot be trusted, so we must take their advice with a large pinch of salt. Frankly, if I feel ill I want to get the advice of my doctor. If I want to have a legal instrument drawn up I go to a lawyer. If I want help with my accounts I go to an accountant. That is a normal thing to do. It is always possible, of course, to have a second opinion. We have had a second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth opinion—and still there are those who distrust those opinions and say, “Oh, well, they would say that, wouldn’t they? They are in it for themselves; they will line their pockets.” I do not think that that is fair to the Royal Institute of British Architects or the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, which have given unbiased advice to our colleagues on the Committee.

[Mark Tami]

The right hon. Gentleman has reminded me of a previous employer of mine: when we got legal advice that he did not like he would always say, “Get another lawyer.” That is the argument that some people are putting forward, when they do not like the expert advice they are given.

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

I agree; that is the problem. At some point we must make a decision. Continually putting it off is causing the bill to rise and the dislocation to increase.

If the Palace is loved as much as I believe it is by almost every person elected to Parliament—it is certainly loved by the staff who serve us here, and the hundreds of thousands of visitors who clamour to come here and take great pleasure from being in the Palace and standing on the Floor of the House of Commons where great names of the past served—it is our duty to put safety before romance. The alternative suggestions magnify risk, perpetuate inconvenience and threaten security. It was when we came back for sittings one September and work was going on in the Committee corridor, with builders all over the place, that intruders got in masquerading as builders. It will be an enormous security threat if we are prepared to have hundreds of workers here at the same time as we try to do business.

I am astonished that some colleagues seem keen to work here while unquantified amounts of asbestos are removed, intrusive noise is unabated and an army of workers operates in our midst, and while any one of several vital services could fail at any moment. I am not surprised that some colleagues recoil from a total decant, but we must look at things in a hard-headed, not emotional, way. We must do the right thing and choose the option to which the evidence overwhelmingly points, and which has persuaded our colleagues on the Committee. I believe that it will then be all the sooner that the Palace, which we see as the symbol of parliamentary democracy, can be restored to its full glory and effectiveness and serve the nation and people for a century, or centuries, more.