Restoration and Renewal

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I have some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Mann. I too would like an answer on the corporate manslaughter issue.

This is a ridiculous building. I speak as a former archaeologist of prehistory. It is modern Victorian kitsch. I do not understand why we hold it in such reverence, particularly now that it is falling apart. I have a lot of respect for the past, but I also respect what it teaches us, which is that things do not and cannot stay the same for ever. Societies, organisations and governments move on, develop and become quite different. I realise that that is unwelcome news for some, but over the millennia we have seen systems rise and fall, however powerful and stable they appear. We certainly cannot say that about our system: we look as though we are letting democracy slip through our fingers. Systems fall, however stable, however powerful, and we need some drastic changes. I support the Motion—I see no alternative—and the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. I regret that it is even necessary to table it, and that it is not simply obvious.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Best, I visited the basement and was absolutely horrified by it. I took a lot of photographs, and one thing I noticed was that quite substantial waterpipes had rusted through completely at the bottom and had been bound up with gaffer tape so that they could still push water through. They were running over electrical wires, telephone equipment and so on, which was absolutely horrifying. This is a disaster waiting to happen.

Therefore, of course we must fix this building, and as soon as possible. We are in a dangerous situation. This has been put off for long enough, and a full decant is the only option. It is interesting to think that the pandemic was a full two years we could have taken advantage of to fix things here. We need some creative thinking. I also agree that moving our Parliament to another city much further north is a very good idea. It would be very healthy for democracy in our country. However, I accept that it is not going to happen.

We did test remote electronic voting, however, which is quite modern, and we did better than the House of Commons. Yet somehow, we have gone back on that because other people think it terribly important to mix and give each other Covid or flu in the corridors. Well, I admit that those machines work extremely well. Remote voting might be the way forward for other circumstances.

This is a very adversarial way to run a Government. I do not know if it is true that the Front Benches are slightly more than two swords’ length apart so that people could not kill each other when they got annoyed at what was being said. I was elected to the London Assembly, which had a horseshoe shape. That worked much better and was much better for co-operation. Your Lordships’ House does co-operate: by and large it is extremely generous and kind to people who have different views, but this Chamber is not conducive to anything except an adversarial situation. A horseshoe shape is used in Edinburgh as well. I am not sure whether that does help co-operation up there, but it could. I, too, think that we could turn this place into a museum. We could get some very beautiful artefacts in here and make it much more of a destination than it is at the moment.

I do not expect these ideas to be taken up, but we must widen our expectations of what government is and what it can be, and what suits our modern, global ideas of democracy. I do not want us to stagnate and collapse, as earlier civilisations did. Yes, please let us get on with it. Please let us not have more and more debates and more and more delays.