House of Commons Financial Plan and Draft Estimates

Debate between Chris Bryant and Karin Smyth

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. Much like the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), I came rather late to the honour of responding to this debate, and found myself at a late hour on Monday evening doing something completely different than I had planned. However, like him, I have found the debate fascinating, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for leading it.

At the outset, I will highlight some areas of success. We often talk about areas of failure when we talk about such topics, but there have been areas of success over the last few years. However, I will first pick up on an area of great concern: the absence of a Finance Committee over a six-month period during an election period. I think that is something that we would like to hear about from the Minister.

As a lifelong NHS bureaucrat, I have had to come to some documents quite late in time. Yesterday evening, when I was given the report, I first turned to the appendix to see whether anything was hidden in there. True to form, in the planning for 2019-20 on page 11, in the high-level planning assumptions, the first thing I read was this:

“The political temperature is high and this may spill over into other areas”.

I trust that the Minister will be able to outline to us how she sees that working over the next couple of years.

I welcome the opportunity to debate these estimates, because as I said, I spent my previous life as an NHS manager, and I am also a former member of the Public Accounts Committee. In our public services and on the Public Accounts Committee, we expect public bodies to behave to the highest standards. We expect them to demonstrate good financial planning, monitoring and accountability, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda said, also to demonstrate value for money. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) is a local government expert. Across the land, we expect our councils to demonstrate value for money, so it is imperative that we do so in this place.

We know that over the next few years Parliament faces a number of significant policy matters and events that will have a bearing on the budget. They include Brexit, restoration and renewal, the refurbishment of the northern estate, the review of the parliamentary archives accommodation, the implementation of the digital strategy, the significant increase in the employers’ pension contribution, pay and reward strategy beyond the current pay deal, enhancing security around the parliamentary estate, and developing cyber-security and technology infrastructure. It is quite a list.

The House debated and voted on restoration and renewal in January, and we would all agree that the Palace of Westminster is in need of restoration and renewal and that a number of issues need to be resolved. We have agreed the decant ahead of the refurbishment work and the work going on with the sponsor body, as we heard earlier. Anyone who has visited the basements and the full extent of this place will know how urgent that work is. A couple of years ago, I had the great pleasure of visiting to look at those places. The conditions in which we are expecting people to operate to service this place and make it work are unacceptable. It is vital that that work continues.

Anyone who knows the history of when Mr Barry and Mr Pugin were doing the original work on this place will know that restoration and renewal is a huge project for the country that will elicit great interest, and it needs to be done properly. We have a massive opportunity for skills development, for apprenticeships, for good employment practices and for reviving great skills that have been lost in this country. We need to be an exemplar not only for the country, but for the world in how the work can be done to make this Parliament fit for the 21st and 22nd century, although we may lose the hon. Member for Glasgow East and his colleagues. Jobs and skills can be developed in Bristol, the Rhondda, Sheffield, Northern Ireland and Scotland. There is a massive opportunity for our country, and I would like to see us do that.

[Chris Bryant]

We have not discussed this important point in our Committee—it is important for the R and R project—but there will be an enormous shortage of staff, in particular to do some of the craft functions that will be needed around the building. We should be setting up parliamentary building apprenticeships in large numbers and ensuring that there are academies across the country so that every different constituency in the land has some investment in the restoration and renewal project.

[Karin Smyth]

I am grateful for that intervention. After I visited a couple of years ago, I did a report in my local newspaper on that very subject. There is great interest in our cities, regions and rural areas in some of the skills that have been lost. We can see when we visit those facilities—I remember seeing it in Sheffield—that in the past people could demonstrate pride in their work and imprint that in this place. It would be magnificent to see young people and older people throughout the country develop those skills and then bring them here to do that work, and there is great interest in that. It is about how we manage that positively but also, critically, demonstrate that we are doing so on a good cost basis and with value for money.

Security and access to the estate are important. Changes to the estate as a result of restoration and renewal and the northern estate programme will require additional resources and security measures. We all have strong memories of the March 2017 attack. A number of security projects have arisen from the Murphy review following that attack. We note that that work is due to be completed by summer 2021, but cyber-security remains a high risk. We know that from last week. The House will continue to face cost pressures from that, but security is critical to the work we do here.

The medium-term financial plan should enable the House service to support Parliament, deliver our specific objectives and demonstrate how the service will become increasingly effective and efficient over time. The strategy is currently being refreshed and the three existing strategic objectives are expected to be expanded to four: facilitating effective scrutiny and debate, involving and inspiring the public, securing Parliament’s future, and valuing every person. Those are important objectives.