House of Commons Administration and Savings Programme

David Winnick Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I would like to thank the Chair of the Finance and Services Committee, the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), for his useful introduction to the debate. I do not particularly want to go into the amendments; I will decide accordingly when the time comes and vote one way or the other.

Mention is made in appendix A of the Committee’s report that by 2015

“The House of Commons will be valued as the central institution in our democracy”.

That is stating the obvious. Whether it is valued or not, or savings are to be made or otherwise, I have always thought that this place is the basis of our country’s democracy; I am unaware of any alternative institution that ensures the democratic process and the rule of law. The appendix also refers to Parliament having

“the accommodation it needs to operate in a modern democracy.”

That subject is my main reason for wanting to speak in this debate.

First, let me say that I entirely accept that savings need to be made. It would be a rather odd situation if we were urging savings everywhere else and ourselves took the view that that would not be appropriate in the Palace of Westminster. That is not necessarily to say, by any means, that I agree with everything that is being suggested.

Aspects of the way in which this place is run and managed sometimes rather surprise me. For instance, I came into my office in late autumn, when there is no necessity for any central heating, and was surprised to find that it was on at full blast and would have been for some days. Obviously, I took appropriate action. I am not suggesting for one moment that central heating should be reduced for those who work day in and day out in this place—Members’ staff, officers, and employees of all kinds—but perhaps some savings could be made in a way that would reduce public expenditure. I certainly would not have liked to pay the heating bill for my office out of my own pocket, nor would I want to claim for my constituency accommodation money that was not justified.

There should be no ambiguity about what I am going to say about cleaning, so let me point out that I am a lifelong trade unionist and a member of the GMB, and I am pleased about that, but, as my hon. Friends will know, I would say it regardless. Conservative Members might take a different view, but be that as it may. On page 18 of the report, there is a recommendation to reduce the number of cleaning staff directly employed by the House and not to renew existing employment contracts. I am concerned about that. Four or five years ago, there was a row about the terms and conditions of service of cleaners not employed by the House of Commons being far inferior to those of cleaners who were directly employed. There was a demonstration, and a lot of pressure applied both inside and outside the House, and the necessary changes were made. The cleaning contract for the House of Commons is with KGB; I am not making that up. Presumably it is not the organisation that became so notorious over 70 years!

When the Leader of the House winds up, I would like him to say whether the same conditions of service for cleaners directly employed by House of Commons apply to those who are on contract with KGB. Is there sickness pay? Is there any pension arrangement? Are their conditions in any way worse than those of directly employed cleaners? I believe that there is no difference in terms of hourly payment, but I am concerned about their conditions of employment.

I now come to my main point. The sum to be saved by 2014-15 is about £20 million, in round terms. However, figures that I have obtained from the Library, and which are in the report, show that spending on the maintenance of the Palace averaged some £30 million in each of the past three years. That, of course, was for both Houses. The contribution made by the House of Commons was, I think, somewhat more than half; in round figures, it was about £54 million, which is a very considerable sum. We know that the maintenance is absolutely essential—it is not done for the sake of it—because this building would not be able to operate on a daily basis if it were not undertaken. That is not in dispute; I am in no way challenging it, and no one else is likely to do so.

Another report, “Restoration and Renewal of the Palace of Westminster”, makes alarming reading and shows why the House of Commons must at some stage, I hope in the near future, make a decision on this building. It says that water penetration is widespread throughout the building, including the House of Commons and the House of Lords, that asbestos is equally widespread, that the building’s mechanical and electrical services are very defective, and that in some areas there is a high fire risk. Another area where essential maintenance is needed is the roof of the Palace, which causes the water penetration and so on. We are not debating that report today, but passing reference is made to it in the report before us.

There is no doubt that we all agree on the savings, but are we going to grasp the real issue that this 19th-century building is not fit in any way for the 21st century? We must recognise that we can keep on spending the money on maintenance year in and year out, but, inevitably, the upshot will still be that a complete overhaul, with all the absolutely essential work that is necessary, will need to be undertaken. Moreover, it will undoubtedly have to be done with Members and everyone else having been evacuated from the Palace; it cannot be done while people are working here, even in the summer recesses—as we all know, if an emergency arises the House is recalled at a moment’s notice. I hope that it will be possible for a decision to be reached in time for the necessary work to begin in the next Parliament. Having known over the years how reluctant the House of Commons is to reach a decision, I very much doubt that that will occur, but I certainly hope that it will be done by 2020.

I am sure that the Leader of the House has read the report to which I referred and will recognise that I am not exaggerating about the overall work that needs to be done. Although I can sometimes be accused of exaggeration by Conservative Members, I do not believe that I am exaggerating now. Yes, it will cost a lot of money, but, as I have illustrated, we are spending money year after year on essential maintenance work. I agree that there must be savings; for the reasons I have stated, I will not oppose the recommendations in the report. However, the House should, as quickly as possible, reach a decision on the bigger, absolutely essential job of making sure that this Palace is fit for purpose.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I do so on behalf of the Government to make clear our support for the work the House is doing to ensure it meets the necessary savings in the broader context. The hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) and the shadow Leader of the House made that clear, too, recognising the need for financial savings right across the public services. As Leader of the House and on behalf of the Government, I also want to reflect on how the House can best achieve those savings.

I would like to say a few words of thanks to the Backbench Business Committee, not least for scheduling this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) on securing it and on the manner in which he introduced it and, as others have said, guided so well the discussion and work to this point. The way in which the Backbench Business Committee has opened up debates in this House has been positive, enabling us, as in this debate, to have a similar impact on House administration. It is not only for us, but for members of the House service and the public more generally, to see how this House is managed and administered in order to deliver something that is not only effective but value for money.

We welcome the level of savings entered into by the House of Commons Commission. Clearly, 17% reductions by 2014-15 relative to 2010-11 are broadly in line with savings across the 2010 spending review, which identified that, other than for protected areas of expenditure, departmental budgets would on average decrease by 19% over four years.

It is important to recognise that this is not the beginning of the process; it is the next stage of it. The House of Commons Administration has already made considerable progress in achieving savings, as Members have said, through voluntary exits, discontinuing printing of documents and improving contract management. We can now see examples of how, as the Commission agreed at the outset, savings should be achieved through detailed analysis of services, and delivered to arrive at something better, not just cheaper. From the Finance and Services Committee report we can see the emergence of more such opportunities, not least if we look at the ICT strategy in the table on page 15. There is clear evidence of how that might make a considerable difference, not just on print to web, but as the Committee’s Chairman said, in relation to such things as cloud computing. That can make a big difference not only in how we access our responsibilities more effectively but by enabling us to rethink the way in which the physical estate is managed in order that we may deliver our responsibilities.

Innovation has to come, too, in respect of visitors to this building, their access and facilities. The Administration Committee set out how to achieve that in its first report of this Session. It was a very good basis on which to proceed. It is not the subject of the report before us, but the income generation associated with it is an integral part of the process of achieving the medium-term financial plan.

I listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). Many Members have illustrated that the risks and concerns that he raised would not be valid on the basis of the way in which the Administration Committee is proceeding. I say gently to my hon. Friend that he underestimates the importance to all of us, and to our constituents, of opportunities for access. We can provide access individually as Members, as the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) has so famously done, but I meet so many constituents who have visited this place without my knowing they had done so. It matters to them that they can access their Houses of Parliament, because so much of their history is here. That is true not just for the people of this country, but for those of many other countries around the world.

I particularly echo the point rightly made by the shadow Leader of the House that as we develop visitor access and facilities, it allows us to boost the opportunities for educational access. Progress has been made, but we all know we want to do more. If we could one day be confident that we could arrive at a position whereby at one point in their educational experience, every young person in this country had had access to their Houses of Parliament on at least one occasion, it would be a dramatic thing to have achieved. We are, however, an order of magnitude away from where we need to be to make that happen.

The hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) raised major issues about the repair and renewal of the House. Part of what we are doing in the medium-term financial plan and in achieving savings will help us better to understand what the shape of repair and renewal for the future will look like. Today and for the foreseeable future, however, we are not yet in a position to make decisions about any of those options, other than to have made clear—for this House and the other place—that we do not want the building of a new Houses of Parliament somewhere else, separate from this place. Much more work needs to be done on the question of how we can sustain this House in the long term before we can look at the options ahead of us.

[Mr Winnick]

Let me make it perfectly clear that I am certainly not in favour of another House of Commons. I want this place to be renewed, so it can be a working place for a long time to come. For that work to be done, however, it seems to me that some evacuation will have to occur.

[Mr Lansley]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. There are options ahead of us, one of which would entail such a “decant”, as it has been called; the other of which would not. We have a great deal of work to do before we know which of them is the best option for this House to meet its responsibilities and for value-for-money purposes.

It has already been demonstrated that House staff are able to deliver excellent service in challenging times, and that their participation in the savings programme has been instrumental. It is axiomatic in any walk of life that if we want to deliver the best possible service, the people who are best equipped to do it are the people working in that service at the front line: they understand it; they can bring forward some of the best ideas for making it happen. The medium-term financial plan is about showing how the business improvement plans— my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) further illustrated them—can achieve that. We should engage the staff fully, listen to them, and work with them. This is not about Members, intimate though we are with how the House works, deciding everything. It is about our working with the staff in challenging times, and recognising that we can achieve not just financial savings but a re-engineering—to use that unfortunate term—of the way in which we do our business.

I agree with the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) that staff in the Committee services and others will need to take a positive and constructive approach to new technologies and new ways of working. I think that many of them are already doing that, and that they will all make a great contribution in the future.

Let me finally say, on behalf of all of us on the House of Commons Commission, that this debate has been immensely helpful in enabling us to understand what response we should make to the Finance and Services Committee, and that we will take full account of all the points that have been raised. I find myself thinking of that famous remark by Sir Winston Churchill:

“We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.”—[Official Report, 28 October 1943; Vol. 393, c. 403.]

It is tempting to think that very little should change in a building of this character, but change is inevitable, and I think that in this instance it will be positive.