Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill

Caroline Spelman Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 19th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

I will come on to that in a minute. It is said that all archaeology is destruction, because when you take something out of its context you cannot return it to that context. It is therefore absolutely essential that the context of what we find—part of archaeology is what you do not find and might have expected to—is absolutely respected and recorded in order to fit together the jigsaw puzzle, particularly for such an important building over so many centuries, and, most likely, over 1,000 years.

[Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

I reassure my hon. Friend that at the pre-legislative scrutiny stage, which I had the privilege of chairing, archaeological significance was indeed touched on. A number of members of the Committee had the opportunity to tour these premises and it became very clear to us that there is great deal more than one can actually see. The deeper we go in any excavation work the more unknown are the important artefacts that may remain below. There was also the rather tragic but true fact that about 17 chimney sweeps are unaccounted for. When we come to deconstruct and reconstruct the building, we need to be very mindful that there may be human remains deep down or within the building—[Interruption.] It is a fact and we need to be very respectful in how we go about these works.

[Tim Loughton]

My right hon. Friend makes a very valid point. I had not considered the prospect of mummified chimney sweeps as part of the archaeological excavations. I am pleased to hear that this issue was considered in pre-legislative scrutiny, which makes it even more surprising and even more of an omission that it did not make its way into the Bill. It is absolutely crucial.

My right hon. Friend and I entered this House on the same day back in 1997 and I have travelled around an awful lot of it, but there are still parts of it that I have not explored. I was privileged enough to go right up into the roof of Westminster Hall during repair work on the beams. I saw the original graffiti when some of them were restored and the ways they had been put together. However, there was a great sadness at that stage. We lobbied through the all-party group on archaeology for a dendrochronology investigation of the beams, because it is likely that when their last major restoration took place in or around 1820, many of them originated from the hulls of ships broken in Portsmouth dockyard, as happened in many cases—an old part of my house is made from beams of ships that, it is thought, came from the 15th century. It is highly likely that some of the ships used here took part in the Battle of Trafalgar. We might have a major part of this country’s long history within the confines of this Palace, yet despite our entreaties no investigation took place when the work was going on, even though that would have made it much easier and given us yet further explanation about how this place was put together. It is really important that we do not miss such opportunities, which we will not have again.