Charging for Access to Parliament

Bob Russell Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Thurso]

I cannot update the hon. Lady on that point at this particular moment.

At a time of national austerity, when we are seeking to reduce the cost of public services to the taxpayer, it is absolutely right that Parliament and parliamentarians are in the vanguard. Indeed, it would be absolutely wrong to exempt ourselves from that process.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

I appreciate that my hon. Friend is trying to gain consensus, but I fear he is failing. I was on the Administration Committee, and I was bored to tears and managed to escape. May I ask him when the House agreed to the total savings programme that his Commission is forcing through?

[John Thurso]

The Commission put forward the overall figure of 17% savings in real terms during the summer of 2010. That figure informed all the documentation that has come out since, and it is the target. I actually hope that we can go further than that, because the process has demonstrated that many of the ways in which we do things have remained unchanged for many years, decades even. When they have been properly examined and re-engineered, it has been found that there are real and considerable savings to be made, not only monetary savings but increases in the efficiency of our work patterns.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I do not normally involve myself in these sorts of debates—like a lot of hon. Members who do not read the relevant e-mails and so on—simply because I trusted in those who take responsibility to do the right thing for us. This might be a lesson to me: perhaps we should take more interest. The issue concerns the principles by which we should go about the fiscal discipline that the House has undertaken. I believe that, because of all the troubles and what has gone wrong in recent years, the House of Commons has decided to beat itself up significantly in all sorts of ways, and this is symbolic of the end product of that.

The principle being breached in this proposal is that hon. Members, when approached by their constituents, should always be able to arrange for them to tour this place, their Parliament, free of charge, accompanied either by their MP or a passholder on their behalf. The Commission should consider that important principle, regardless of whether the motion or the amendment is passed—although I do not know whether that can have the effect of directing the Commission to do anything, to be quite honest.

[Sir Bob Russell]

I am a long-serving Member of the House. When I arrived here in 1997 representing the premier borough in Essex, which I still do, visitors on tours were charged, but the House authorities dropped it because the administration costs were so great compared with the income.

[Kevin Brennan]

That is an interesting point. The arrangement that I am suggesting is more practical, which is in addition to the principle that Members should be able to help their constituents tour this place.

We have heard about other things that could be looked at if we are to stick to this 70% real-terms cut over the next few years, including the grace-and-favour apartments. Sometimes in this place, when a stone is lifted, one is staggered to find what is underneath. How many members of the public are aware that there are grace and favour apartments still lived in by Officers of the House? It is astonishing in the 21st century. There is little transparency or ventilation of such matters until something like this makes people prod further under the stone. The Commission should consider very seriously what Members have said about such arrangements.

It is important that people can come here, listen to our debates and see the House operating. It is also important that our constituents, particularly our younger constituents, can come here and understand the history of the constitution of this United Kingdom as expressed through these buildings. This is a modern, purposefully designed Parliament, albeit designed as a modern Parliament for the 1840s and 1850s. However, it was so designed to express our constitution, and I have found that the young people whom I show around this building have understood much better how our constitution works and what our democracy is all about. The very design of this place is a physical expression of the British constitution, and we should remember that. It is very important that our constituents can come here, free of charge, and have an opportunity to understand that.

This proposal is taking us in a dangerous direction. The Commission will see this as a fairly innocuous proposal to raise a bit of revenue, but my fear is that in a few years we will see the supreme irony in this place of huge corporate events and dinners for the bankers—the very people who put us in the mess that necessitates all this fiscal cutting. They will be the only people in here, having their swanky champagne parties and dinners in Westminster Hall or on the Terrace, while our constituents are charged simply for the privilege of looking around their own Parliament. That is where all this is headed. Whether we accept the amendment or the motion, the Commission needs to listen to the voices of people in the House and think again.