Charging for Access to Parliament

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on his persistence in getting this debate and on his passionate advocacy of the position that he has taken. However, I hope that the House will accept the amendment moved by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) for the Commission to have another look at the issue.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) made the profoundly true observation that we, and all our constituents, are struggling with how to prioritise difficult decisions in tough times, and this is one such example. We are not in an ideal world where perhaps all access to this building could be free, but we have to make the savings that—at the beginning of this Parliament—Mr Speaker, in his role as head of the House of Commons Commission, committed us to making.

It is also important to remember that this issue is about the Clock Tower, not about access to this building in its working sense as a Parliament. Our constituents will still have free access to see their Members of Parliament and to watch proceedings in the Chamber from the Public Gallery, as well as to visit Committees. I for one would not support the amendment if I thought that there would be any slippage in that very important principle. We need to separate the two issues, although I do understand the worries that people have.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I agree with some of the hon. Lady’s basic tenets, but is it not true that as a result of the opaque and antediluvian nature of the Commission and the Management Board, we are effectively held accountable for decisions over which we have had no real, effective or demonstrable say?

[Ms Eagle]

That is a very timely intervention from the hon. Gentleman as I was about to deal with that point, especially as I am a very new member of the House of Commons Commission. I have been in the House for 20 years and always thought that the way in which the House was managed was rather antediluvian and opaque, to put it kindly. I expected when I was given this job that I would dash into the Commission and everything would be revealed. I thought that I would see how the House and all of its domestic Committees worked. I have to confess that after a few months I am still rather of the hon. Gentleman’s view, and light, transparency and more debate about such matters should be organised. We need to think as a Parliament about how we can bring that about.

We are all busy. Doubtless everybody read the e-mails that were sent in 2010 about this issue, but perhaps they did not fully take them in. I therefore have much sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s point, and we should consider how we might ventilate the serious issues that the Management Board has to deal with so that hon. Members on both sides of the House become aware of them in a more timely way. E-mails go out, but we cannot force Members to notice them or read them in detail. The system is antediluvian and lacks transparency, and we might want to think about more modern approaches.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

I first visited this great Palace of Westminster in the summer of 1976, at the age of 11. It was part of a school visit. My parents were not particularly well off; we could not afford a foreign trip, so we came and visited all the London sights, one of which was the Palace of Westminster. The Palace of Westminster, including Big Ben, has been intrinsic to our national Parliament—some may call it the mother of Parliaments—for 150 years. It was Sir Giles Gilbert Scott who said:

“We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.”

Ever since William Rufus built the great hall in 1099, a Parliament has existed on this site. In 2008 Big Ben was voted the most popular UK landmark, and this debate is very much about that. This is not an administrative housekeeping issue; this is about setting a precedent. I believe that the public, who have already paid their taxes—as people have done over the hundreds of years there has been a Parliament here—should not be charged twice to visit a place that is theirs. The influence, power and discretion that we exercise here is done on the basis of a leasehold in the name of the people we represent. They ultimately own these buildings, and we are responsible and accountable to them.

That leads me on to the discussion that we have had today—thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), who secured this debate—on the antediluvian, opaque nature of the governance of this place, and on the Commission and the Management Board in particular. I was never consulted on the closure of Bellamy’s bar in order to create a crèche, or on the closure of Annie’s bar. I have not been consulted on the alternative proposals on sitting days, on early-day motions or on the duplication of administration and paperwork in the House, all of which should be presented to us. We really need to have a proper debate on all that.

Are the House of Commons and the House of Lords really to become a kind of glorified Harry Potter-esque theme park? In this, the 200th year since Dickens’s birth, are we really so focused on taking a Dickensian, “Mr Gradgrind” approach that we must destroy the basic tenet that the people of this country who pay taxes should have free access to all the public parts of the precincts of the Palace of Westminster?

[Duncan Hames]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jackson]

I will not give way, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.

We must keep that access free, because it sends an important message. If we do not, we could find that only the wealthy, the well connected and businesses will have access to the mother of Parliaments. That would be a sad day, and a tragedy for democracy. It would further undermine people’s faith and trust in us. Let us imagine that a husband and wife and their two children get on the train in my constituency of Peterborough and pay £90 return each to come to London. Why should they have to pay £15 each to visit the Clock Tower? Why should we charge them an extra tax to visit part of the political and historical heritage of this country, one of the most famous buildings in the world? I do not believe that that would be right.

We need to explore the governance that has led to this proposal, because it has not involved ordinary elected Members. This feels like the script for “The Da Vinci Code”, because it is not open and transparent; far from it. I also reject the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso). His remarks have been erudite and eloquent, as ever, but I nevertheless smell an establishment stitch-up.

[John Thurso]

May I tell the hon. Gentleman that on this occasion his sense of smell is a touch out? What he should be smelling is a desperate attempt—if I can put it like that—by those of us who are in charge of these things to seek to accommodate the views being expressed. I put it to him, to the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) and to his other hon. Friends that I really am seeking to arrive at where they want to go.

[Mr Jackson]

I take on board the hon. Gentleman’s comments, but one of the points of the Backbench Business Committee, if it is not to become the nobbled shih tzu of the Executive, is to ensure that the emphatic will and opinion of the House is sought on certain matters. We voted on such matters on Monday. Today we are looking at the thin end of a wedge; a precedent could be set that would result in our constituents being effectively excluded from part of the precincts of the Palace of Westminster. If the House divides on the motion, we must be emphatic in making it clear that we are not minded to enter into any kind of long-drawn-out scenario of kicking this matter into the long grass, and that we need to make a decision now. We need to set our own precedent. This is the people’s Parliament; they have paid for it through their taxes and they should have free rein here. We represent them, and we should be mindful of their opinions. We should keep the status quo.