Lord Vaux of Harrowden
Main Page: Lord Vaux of Harrowden (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)
My Lords, we are at last now reaching the critical decision-making phase in relation to the restoration and renewal of this building. I should say up front that although I am currently a member and deputy chair of the R&R programme board, and chair of its sub-board, I am speaking today on my own behalf, not on behalf of any of those bodies. I think we all share the frustration that this seems to be taking a very long time, but I want to try to strike a slightly more optimistic note, at least looking forward.
Although many noble Lords have the impression that not much has been happening over the last few years since the delivery authority was established, that is not correct. This is a very significant project, and an awful lot of work has been done to ensure that we are able to make the right decision later this year. I have been critical, and remain critical to an extent, of the amount that the delivery authority has spent or is spending—and perhaps slightly of how it has been spent. To refer to the point from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, about whether we are duplicating bore-holes and things, I do not think we are, but for various reasons they have happened slightly later in the process than would have been good. They seem to be getting there now, which is good.
There is no doubt at all that a lot of extremely valuable work has been carried out. Importantly, huge expertise and a lot of very deep knowledge about the building have been created. I think we all know all too well that starting a project of this nature without that detailed and deep knowledge is a recipe for disaster.
In addition, over the last few years the governance of the project has changed and is—in my view, anyway—working rather better. The two Houses are working much more closely together and are better, if not perfectly, aligned. In particular, our in-house Strategic Estates team, which knows the building well over the history, is much more involved, which is positive. The delivery authority and Strategic Estates are now working really quite closely together and we seem to have reduced the “them and us” mentality that I think quite seriously dogged the project in its earlier days.
We will make the decision as to how we renew the Palace later this year, with the two Houses making the final decision after it has been recommended by the client board, which is the two commissions working together. It is the process to make that decision that I want to speak about a little. As we heard, three possible options are now being worked on. These are the original “full decant” option, the variation of that option where the Commons would retain a continued presence in the Palace and the Lords would decant, and the newer and slightly less mature option that has become known as “enhanced maintenance and improvement” or EMI, where the project would be phased over a longer period. But let us be brutally honest: all three options will take many years. None of them is quick. I suspect that none of us in this Room is likely, even on the shortest decant process, to come back into this building in our time.
Historically, there has been a bit of a tendency for people to support one or other option, in effect to prejudge the outcome before the output from all the work carried out by the experts over the last few years has been presented. I have argued before that the debate had become rather Brexity, with decanters in one camp and non-decanters in another, so I urge noble Lords to be open-minded. We have not yet seen the findings of all the work that has been carried out, including the expected timeframes, costs, impact of safety and security or levels of disruption.
What is important is that we make the right decision—the one that will stick. The decision should be taken only once we have seen those findings and plans. Anything else would be based not on evidence but on just our own gut feel. The other criticism of politicians, as referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, is that we are all slightly guilty of becoming armchair experts on things. We need to trust the experts who have been working so hard in recent years, so I hope noble Lords will be open-minded and park any judgment until they have seen the evidence and what is actually proposed.
I also want to comment briefly on the third option, the so-called, and perhaps badly named, “enhanced maintenance and improvement” option. It is sometimes described by some Members—I think we have heard it already today—as kicking the can down the road or the “do nothing” option. Someone suggested to me a few days ago that it just means muddling along as we have been to date. I hope I can assure noble Lords that that really is not the case. All three options are being scoped as far as possible to achieve the same levels of outcome as far as safety, accessibility and so on are concerned.
On accessibility, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, that the accessibility and inclusion aspects of this are absolutely front and centre of the appraisal process that we are going through for all three. The difference between them is only how the work would be carried out and over what timeframe.
Noble Lords may remember that we were told in the past that because the building’s services are a single set of services, serving the whole building, it would be possible to do this work only in a single stage and therefore the “full decant” option was the only realistic way forward. But following the work that has been done, it is clear that that is not necessarily the case. There appear to be ways of breaking this up and phasing the work over a longer period, which would potentially reduce the requirement for expensive and disruptive decants.
That is not to prejudge the outcome. I have no idea at this stage which will be the better option: “full decant” may well be the right way to go, or it may not. I want to reassure noble Lords that all three options will be appraised fully and that all three aim to attain the same level of outcome. All will be appraised against the same criteria, which include, among other things, fire protection, health and safety and security, accessibility and inclusion, as I have just mentioned, business continuity and disruption during the process, value for money—very important—timescale, the impact on the heritage of the building and the environmental and social value elements.
We are at a critical point. We must make a decision this year. We must make the right decision that will stick and will save this iconic building for the future. As the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, just mentioned, noble Lords will have received an email recently from the chair of the programme board, Judith Cummins, and from me, encouraging them to engage with the process during this critical next few months. I want to use this opportunity to encourage noble Lords who have not yet done so to take up the opportunity for the tours and the one-to-one sessions with the R&R team. Most importantly, I again urge noble Lords not to prejudge the outcome before the evidence has been provided, to be open-minded and to have trust in the experts who are doing the work. That should make it more likely that we make the right decision for the building and for Parliament.