Access and Facilities (House of Commons)

Debate between Viscount Thurso and Lord Spellar

Tuesday 4th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan. Although this is not the first time that a Commission spokesman has replied to a debate, it has not happened for some while. This is a novel experience for me, and I hope that I do justice to the excellent introductory remarks of the Chair of the Administration Committee and contributions from hon. Members.

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) and to the work of the Committee, the members of which are often unsung heroes. Having served on the Committee during the 2005 Parliament, I am well aware of how much work is done. On behalf of the Commission, I assure the Committee that its report and, indeed, its other work are taken extremely seriously. We are grateful for that work, which is extremely helpful in assisting the Commission and management to formulate the strategies and policies that the House management will follow. I am extremely grateful to the Chair of the Committee for securing the debate, and I hope that he will pass on to those members of his Committee who are not here the Commission’s thanks for his and the Committee’s hard work.

The report is an important body of work that will inform Members and management on the principles of the House and the management of visitors for years to come. The report’s first conclusion, which the right hon. Gentleman set out in his opening remarks, says it all. The central idea that has emerged from the inquiry is the critical point that two conceptions of Parliament are required: the working institution and the visitor attraction. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the Palace of Westminster is, first and foremost, a home to Parliament as a working institution, and that all procedures of Parliament are and will remain freely available to all citizens who wish to observe and visit Parliament or their MP. Secondly, subject to that primacy of free access for parliamentary purposes, the Palace of Westminster is a world-class visitor attraction that should be open to visitors, provided that the costs of providing any maintenance and of servicing those visitors are fully recovered from tourist visitors, thus ensuring that no supplementary finance is required from the taxpayer. Those are my words, but I hope that they accurately reflect the Committee’s recommendation and the Commission’s acceptance of that recommendation.

There is an interesting debate to be continued on what “recovery of costs” might mean. Obviously, there is a cash on-cost, because if a visitor walks around, a member of staff is required, and if there are no visitors, there is no staff cost. If there are more visitors, more staff are needed, so there are more direct costs. However, there are also indirect costs: wear and tear to the Palace and other costs that build over time. I argue that there should be full recovery of costs, with a surplus on the operating profit line of the resource account to put against further costs as time goes by, but that is a debate to be had in due course.

I will briefly address several of the points raised by the Chair of the Administration Committee. He highlighted all the important points, particularly the conflicting demand for access. Our business and tourist visitors are often in conflict, and we need to resolve that conflict. Again, as he said, we need to address the challenges of modern security and the way queues build up. The recommendations on that are central and have been taken on board, and I shall address them later.

The right hon. Gentleman touched a slight nerve when he referred to the debate on charging for access to what is now the Elizabeth Tower, the full consequences of which are only beginning to be understood. He stated that that debate raised awareness, which is a good point, as marketing a free service tends to increase use. The problem now is to deliver on that demand. He also made some good points about interaction with the Lords and the education service.

The hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) raised some extremely good points, particularly on visitor access. She referred to recommendation 3 in the report:

“It is our view that members of the United Kingdom armed forces wearing uniform should…be eligible to be fast-tracked into the House”.

No one would gainsay that recommendation. Particularly in these times, but probably at all times, that recommendation should be given effect. The Commission has directed the Serjeant at Arms to consider all these matters carefully, so although I cannot give a categorical assurance on any particular point, I assure both the Chair and members of the Administration Committee that that recommendation is being seriously considered.

The hon. Lady also talked about children’s access and the fact that children from Suffolk Coastal receive no subsidy. Of course, as my constituency is on the north coast of Scotland, I am literally at the other end of the scale. Interestingly, schools in my constituency receive the maximum subsidy, but I have had only four school visits in 12 years in Parliament, because the part schools have to pay is so great. I suspect that the sum is greater than the full cost for schools from Suffolk, although I do not know that. The way we provide sufficient subsidy to ensure that kids from Kinlochbervie, Farr or Golspie—or wherever—are able to get here as easily as kids from Islington or anywhere relatively close by is an interesting conundrum.

Indeed, the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) also addressed that theme in his excellent contribution, and this goes back to what the Chair of the Administration Committee mentioned and a matter that we on the Committee during the 2005 Parliament discussed at length, but never implemented. Are we going to provide facilities properly designed for education, which includes a proper reception for children and proper areas for classroom activities? I can give no commitment on behalf of the Commission, but I remain convinced that providing the capital expenditure necessary to provide a proper facility—one that would enable teaching to be done comfortably without using other rooms in the Palace, as currently happens, and that would enable children to be looked after properly and taken through the Palace to see what happens—would represent a tremendous addition to our outreach. Obviously, we are in straitened times, but if we accepted that principle—I stress again that I am speaking for myself on this point, not the Commission—it would be a tremendous step forward.

The hon. Member for Amber Valley also touched on the important question of how catering is funded. As a former caterer, that is something that has always fascinated me about this place. It all depends on how we look at it, because if we do a price comparison, many of our dining rooms are in line with commercial competition in the area. The prices are not particularly generous in many outlets, especially in banqueting and some of the dining rooms. The operating profit—what we used to call the kitchen profit, or sales minus food cost—as a percentage is absolutely bang on with commercial percentages found in the industry.

As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, the problem is that the profit generated three days a week for 30-odd weeks of the year is expected to fund the building, the catering outlets, the kitchens and the staff seven days a week for 52 weeks of the year. That equation does not work. Consequently, the final bottom line is a negative figure, which implies a subsidy, but it is not a subsidy on a daily operating basis—it is due to how we work. I have therefore always been keen to use the fallow times when staff and facilities are available in a way that would allow the subsidy and requirement for taxpayer funding to be reduced or even eliminated, and that is a critical point.

The hon. Gentleman also raised the question of the relationship between the Lords and the Commons. Again, I have slightly peculiar inside knowledge, in that I served on a Sub-Committee of the House of Lords when I was in the other place. When one sits in the other House, there is a desire not to cede its sovereignty to anyone for any purpose, which makes negotiations slightly more difficult. I commend the Chair of the Administration Committee on working hard with his opposite number, but I think that we in this House must proceed wherever we can. If we wait for their lordships, we may wait for a long time.

I want to respond to the points raised in the report, and particularly to the Commission’s agreement in principle to a package of measures that will improve the services available to visitors to Parliament and make a significant net contribution to defraying the additional costs to the public purse that arise from occupying the Palace. I stress again that, first and foremost, we are a Parliament providing free access for those attending parliamentary proceedings and meeting their Members. However, as has been pointed out, the building is available thereafter to contribute significantly to defraying costs.

In that light, the Commission has agreed in principle to open for commercial tours during the Christmas and Easter recesses, bank holidays and Sundays between April and October on the same basis that we have opened during the summer for the past decade, and more recently on Saturday. In addition, it has agreed in principle to open for an extra hour on each commercial day of opening; to increase the range and frequency of specialist tours, such as the new art and architecture tour of Portcullis House; to introduce new options for tours, including a short tour of Westminster Hall and an audio-guided tour in addition to the current tour with a guide; to relocate the St Stephen’s shop to the Westminster Hall area; to relocate the bookshop to a more suitable new retail unit at 49-50 Parliament street; to introduce an online retail facility for souvenirs; to develop the range of guidebooks offered for sale following the successful launch in July of a new official guide to the Palace; to develop filming possibilities in the Elizabeth Tower—for the purposes of clarity, I add that that will be charged for; to offer afternoon teas to those taking tours; and to offer the atrium in Portcullis House, the dining rooms in the Palace of Westminster, the Pugin Room, the Jubilee Room and the Terrace Pavilion for commercial hire—I stress on an experimental basis—for two years, on a limited number of occasions when they are not expected to be used by Members. There will be a limited trial in those facilities. Finally, the Commission has agreed to establish or work with an existing small charitable body to raise funds to support the advancement of public education and information on, and access to, the history of UK parliamentary democracy and its processes.

Detailed plans are being drawn up for implementing each of those ideas. The current public-facing services that generate income—visitor tours, catering, retail outlets and so forth—are operated at a net annual cost to the House of £900,000. That includes a small surplus on retail operations, a break-even for the bookshop and a net deficit for visitor services, which represents the cost of free access and tours sponsored by Members. Initial estimates suggest that the proposed activities, as the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden said, would generate an additional £3 million in net income by 2014-15, thus turning the current net cost into an annual net contribution of some £2 million.

The various groups of staff responsible for managing tours, visitor catering and retailing have been brought together under single management, which is expected to bring greater commercial imperative and financial clarity. That has been welcomed by the Finance and Services Committee, which I have the honour to chair and on which the Chair of the Administration Committee also sits.

The Commission is also taking action to tackle the queues for entry that can occur at peak times. We take the issue extremely seriously, and the Commission considers that ideally, apart from on days when there are mass lobbies or exceptional events, people should not have to queue. The search facilities at Cromwell Green have been reviewed by the Serjeant at Arms, and changes have been made to alleviate lengthy queues. In addition, the Serjeant is continuing to explore options for making changes to improve the flow at both the Cromwell Green and Portcullis House entrances.

However, current security requirements pose challenging resource and practical constraints on resolving the problem immediately. As a first step, officials will seek actively to manage the situation, focusing on limiting waiting times to no more than 15 minutes. That might require the House administration to set up a central booking system, as suggested by the Committee, although the Commission recognises that constraints on when activities can take place could inconvenience individual Members.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Is it not a fact that, as with most security systems, minor improvements to operation can often result in considerably increased throughput? For example, when the Administration Committee went to look at the Cromwell Green entrance, the main bottleneck was at the camera taking photos for passes. It turns out that there is a second camera. Had it been manned, all the security gates could have been operated, which would have relieved the process considerably. It is not about huge capital investment, or even significant manpower investment; it is about better management of the system. It is the same as at airports. They have improved a lot, and our operation needs to as well.

[John Thurso]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely spot on. Indeed, as somebody who flies north and back again every week, I have seen the improvements as people work out how things should operate and make small suggestions about the way they are handled. To take one example, I more often than not go via Gatwick. The way Gatwick’s security has improved—from the absolutely ghastly experience of five years ago to the relatively painless experience of today—is an object lesson. There has been some careful capital expenditure on the right kit, but most of all good management. That point has been taken on board, and it is precisely what the Serjeant at Arms and other members of the management are considering. All suggestions are gratefully received. The House management wishes to get people through as quickly as is consistent with decent security.