Charging for Access to Parliament

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

The right hon. Gentleman is right. People in Northern Ireland have been victims of terrorism, and they will know that the bells of Big Ben rang through the blitz and have a central part in everything good about being British.

This is an undemocratic decision because it has been made by the House of Commons Commission. The decision opens a can of worms. Yes, there have been consultations, chats, discussions and e-mails with MPs, but surely we in this House should have a say over major decisions about the costing and planning of expenditure at Westminster. The Commission says that we have to cut 17% from Parliament’s budget. I recognise, as does everybody else, that we have to make cuts. The 17% figure might be the right one, but it might be the wrong one—perhaps it should be 20% or 15%—but we in this House and in this Chamber have had no say in it, and that is wrong. The Commission should come to the House and present a list of the savings it is making, and then MPs should have the right to say whether they agree or disagree and answer to our constituents as to whether we are giving the taxpayer value for money.

The plans to charge for Big Ben raise much wider issues about the remit of the House of Commons Commission and whether Members should be elected to it.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

I fully support the hon. Gentleman’s motion. He is talking about savings in the House, but very much of what the Commission does is totally undemocratic. We never get asked about it and suddenly find out things from other people who work in this House. Does he agree that over the past five or six years what happens in the House has become incredibly top-heavy, with managers who are managing everything and have no understanding of what is going on at the bottom here in the House of Commons?

[Robert Halfon]

I do agree. Sadly, that is true of the whole public sector, not just Parliament, but the hon. Lady makes a very powerful point.

My next argument is that the decision is unnecessary. The Commission states that Clock Tower tours cost roughly £93,000, which will go up to about £111,000 over the next year or so. I would question that. Now that we are going to bring in charges, I suspect that not as many people will be able to afford to come here. I know from an e-mail that I have received that up to 200 people have e-mailed to ask for Clock Tower tours as soon as possible to try to avoid the cut-off date.

As I said, Parliament needs time to debate where these savings could be made. We need to think first in generalities, but I will offer some specific savings for Members to consider. We could look at the cost of publications and press cuttings. As regards the dining rooms, on Mondays they are barely used at lunchtime, so one of them could be closed at those times, saving a fair bit of money. Then there are the properties owned by the House of Commons. I am particularly disturbed about the waste of food in this place, which is absolutely obscene. I therefore welcome the ten-minute rule Bill on the subject of food waste that was introduced by the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) yesterday. The other day, when I went to the Members Dining Room, I asked the staff, who are wonderful and hard-working, “How many people have been in here today?”, and they said “About three.” This was a Monday lunchtime, and there was a huge banquet of food, as there always is. I asked what happened to the food, and they said, “It has to be thrown away.” I replied, “Well, why can’t it be given to charity or why can’t less food be made?” The answer on the charity point was that they might be sued if the food was contaminated and somebody got food poisoning.

I tabled a written question to ask the House of Commons Commission how much food was thrown away in the last year. The answer was the shocking figure of £100,000-worth. That cannot continue. When we are looking for savings, we should look at that issue seriously. Again, MPs should have a chance to debate this matter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Eagle]

I have considerable sympathy with that point, and perhaps we can all thank the hon. Member for Harlow for bringing this issue to the attention of the House so that we can consider how we might manage the House in a more modern way that brings people along at an earlier stage in the process and ventilates some of the darker, cobwebby areas of the old management systems.

[Kate Hoey]

My hon. Friend talks about Members not necessarily being involved. Does she agree that what seems to be happening more recently is that long-serving and dedicated staff of the Palace—especially at the lower paid level, such as cleaners and others—feel very much that they are taken for granted? They have lost the feeling of being part of a community: they are now part of a tick-box management mentality.

[Ms Eagle]

It is really important that, as these substantial attempts to save large amounts of money happen, we ensure that the pain is felt as much at the top of the structures as it is at the bottom. The only way we can have a savings process with any legitimacy is if everybody involved is affected equally and the pain is not visited most on those at the bottom or those least able to bear it.