Restoration and Renewal of the Palace of Westminster

Debate between Edward Leigh and Mark Tami

Thursday 20th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is extremely helpful because, as I said, I have to work with what we have at the moment, and from what the spokesperson for the Sponsor Body now says, we seem to have moved on from the demolition of Richmond House. This will be of enormous comfort to the heritage organisations such as SAVE, with which I have been working very closely. If we are looking at a grade II* listed building, even the lowest level of listing is defined as

“warranting every effort to preserve”

these buildings—that is according to Historic England—and Richmond House is above that. It was, of course, one of the most important public buildings created in the 1980s.

I can cut short my speech, because I appear to be on a bit of a winning streak. I do not really need to quote all the various points that have been made by numerous distinguished architects and historic buildings organisations in favour of Richmond House, which was put up only 30 years ago. Of course, demolishing it would be environmentally unsound.

[Mark Tami]

I do not want to upset the right hon. Member, but my preferred option would be to knock the building down, apart from the façade, and to create something that would have a useful legacy. The reality is that I do not think that will happen, so we have to work within the given footprint. That would probably mean that we had only one Division Lobby rather than two, which would not be the end of the world.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

It is so wonderful to all come together and find a way forward. I can provide a way forward, because I have been working with SAVE on the matter. This is called the Mark Hines proposal, and it is from a professional architect. SAVE commissioned Mark Hines Architects to look into preserving Richmond House. He found that a replica Commons Chamber would fit into the Richmond House courtyard. His proposal includes a full Chamber of the same size and layout as at present, Division Lobbies, public and press seating at gallery level—somewhat reduced, understandably —and handicapped access. It would fulfil the full security needs, having a separate public entrance with security clearing area and a blast-proof structure. A private security firm has assessed the plan and said that it meets security requirements.

Architectural plans prove that this is possible. The building could be prefabricated off site and installed using cranes within a matter of months, and independent security consultants confirm that it is as safe as existing proposals. It is professionally costed at £46 million, in contrast to reports in the architectural press that the current plan would cost £1.6 billion. To reassure my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), the former Leader of the House, if the House of Commons insists that we decant and create an alternative Chamber, I proffer that solution. It would save a listed building and provide a perfectly adequate alternative.

I must say that there is an even cheaper proposal, and I hope the House will forgive me if I share it. That is the Anthony Delarue proposal—again, he is a professional architect—which I commissioned. He accepts that a top-to-bottom renovation makes sense, because, as we have heard, the systems need a total revamp. He proposes that we move temporarily to the House of Lords Chamber, as we did in the second world war, and that the House of Lords move to the Royal Gallery. He suggests—this is a professional architect, not me—that these areas could be sectioned off with complete external servicing, with linear access to Portcullis House via New Palace Yard, and with temporary canteens, lavatories and so on accommodated in Old Palace Yard, Victoria Tower Gardens or Abingdon Street Gardens.

That proposal has all the advantages of a full decant. Every electrical socket, bit of wiring, air duct and climate control system can be pulled out and comprehensively done in one go. It solves the most expensive problem—the provision of temporary accommodation—by housing two plenary Chambers within the existing Palace. Richmond House will not be just preserved but integrated into the estate, to house workers displaced from the Palace. The proposal eliminates the lengthy timeframe of potential public inquiries into the demolishing of a listed building. Of course, it retains the QEII conference centre, with all the financial advantages to the Treasury of retaining its income from the centre. That is the proposal. I put it forward as probably the very cheapest option, rather akin to what we did in the second world war. If the House insists on a full decant into Richmond House, however, I proffer the courtyard idea.

None of these plans is set in stone. We can be clever, and we can pick and choose. Surely, time has moved on. As has been said again and again in this debate, we have proved that we can work virtually. I am with the Leader of the House; I do not like virtual working, but it can greatly shorten the time for which we have to be away from this Chamber. There are other proposals I have put which are even cheaper. We know—I know we cannot say much about it—that there is already an emergency alternative pop-up Chamber stored somewhere. If we had to move away for a few months or a year, we could use the atrium of Portcullis House. I met the architect of Portcullis House. He actually designed it so a Chamber could go in the atrium. A Chamber with Division Lobbies could fit exactly in that space. Not ideal, but surely we have proved during this pandemic that we do not have to move out of this place for ever. I was very interested in what the Leader of the House said, and I think what the Chairman of the Committee said, if I remember rightly, that while we would want to move out all the Committees from here, we could actually seal off the Chamber and have access through the corridor past the Prime Minister’s office.

I want to emphasise that this is not a debate between decant and not decant. I am perfectly happy, and all those colleagues on the Back Benches I have been working with are perfectly happy, if we have to decant for a few months, eight months, nine months, a year. What we do not want—I will finish on this point, Madam Deputy Speaker—is a gold-plating operation. We do not want Richmond House demolished. We do not want a permanent replica Chamber created at vast cost. We do not want to surrender our fate to an army of consultants and architects to leave this place and be out of it for five or 10 years. Look at the Canadian example: we could be out of this place for up to 10 years. I do not believe that that is what the public really want. This is a citadel of our democracy. For many people in the world, this democracy is about this building. By all means, let us come together and get on with it, but let us have a short decant, not a long, highly wasteful decant of up to 10 years.

Restoration and Renewal

Debate between Edward Leigh and Mark Tami

Thursday 16th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

This debate has often falsely been portrayed as a debate between pragmatic modernisers such as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who by the way I cannot help liking and respecting—I do not know why, but I do—and traditionalists who are putting their own comfort first. Actually, the arguments are far more complex. I have spent quite a lot of time over the past few years talking to architects and mechanical and electrical engineers, and I personally believe that compared with the present plans, there are greener, cheaper, faster and better solutions.

May I burnish my credentials with those who say that we have to get on with this work by saying that 25% of the space in the Palace is currently taken up by unseen historical ventilation systems? I went round some of them yesterday. There are 24-hour fire checks in many roof and basement areas. There were four fires in 2019, eight fires in 2018 and even a small fire in the basement last month. We all accept that the work has to be got on with as quickly as possible.

My contention is that if we follow the present plans, we will face years of delay and public inquiries, because when the original Joint Committee met, it was told that it could fit a temporary Chamber into one of the courtyards of Richmond House. It was given the wrong measurements and that is how we started the whole genesis of knocking down all of Richmond House.

[Mark Tami]

It was not so much that the Joint Committee was given the wrong measurements; actually, the plans were different from the structure that was built, and the basement turned out to be 10% smaller. I do not know whether the builder, whoever it was, had fiddled the system, but that was the reason.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am grateful. That points out some of the problems.

I come to the present proposal to knock down Richmond House, which is, of course, a listed building. I never thought that I would defend a building younger than myself, but I am. It was listed for a purpose—to preserve it. It is an award-winning building. The best way to be carbon neutral, actually, is not to knock down an existing building, so even if people are in favour of full decant—I do not want to repeat all the arguments—we do not need to knock down Richmond House. I have been working with SAVE, the architectural heritage association, and it is perfectly possible to build a temporary Chamber in the courtyard. If it is temporary, it may be a tiny bit uncomfortable. There will be less of a tendency, once we leave this building, for the works to drag on for five or 10 years—and it will be five or 10 years. We have seen with modern voting systems that we can vote electronically. We do not need two wide Division Lobbies, and all the rest.

I am looking now to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I think that we can very quickly probably come to a kind of consensus—that we do not need to go to the super-gold-plated option of knocking down Richmond House and exactly replicating this space, with the Division Lobbies. They have even made the Division Lobbies wide enough to have the oriel windows, but we do not need those in any temporary future Chamber.

There is a better, cheaper, faster alternative, however, and I echo the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown). I have been working with Anthony Delarue, a well-respected architect, who has a long history of working with historic buildings. It is perfectly possible to have a line of route through Westminster Hall, St Stephen’s Hall and Central Lobby into the House of Lords Chamber, which could be used by the House of Commons, as it was in the second world war, perhaps with the House of Lords put in the Royal Gallery. It would be perfectly possible, according to expert opinion, to have the services taken from outside—from services in Abingdon gardens or Victoria Tower gardens—and we could start getting on with this work now.

Contrary to the horror stories that we have been told, it is possible to get on with this work, make considerable progress with the ventilation systems, the heating systems, the electrical and mechanical systems and the asbestos systems while we continue to work in this Palace, which is the iconic home of British democracy. As we have heard, it has 1 million visitors every year. Do we really want to close this building down? I think that it will be 10 years—I do not think it will be five years once we lose control of this process. Do we want to lose 1 million people a year times 10? That is a lot of schoolchildren who will never visit this place. At least if we can keep Westminster Hall and Central Lobby open, and if we can have visitors coming to witness our debates in the House of Lords Chamber and visiting the House of Lords in the Royal Gallery, we would be doing a service to our constituents.

I repeat this vital point. We are told again and again that it is impossible to split up the services. I have been around in the past week with a mechanical and electrical engineer and he says that that is simply not true. After all, we create, in days, pop concerts for hundreds of thousands of people, but we are told, “No, we can’t do that. We can’t take services from outside. It’s all too difficult. We have to surrender control of the process.” I simply do not buy into that. I think that it is groupthink and, frankly, that we have been bamboozled in the past four or five years. There are alternative, costed, expert opinions saying that there are cheaper, greener and better ways to do this. If there is a real fire risk, and I think there is a real fire risk, why delay this whole process for years while we seek to demolish Richmond House, while we have a public inquiry and while we build a permanent replica Chamber?

By the way, what will we actually use that Chamber for? When visitors come here in 10, 15 or 20 years’ time, do they want to be visiting a replica? They will want to see this Chamber, where Winston Churchill spoke or Jacob Rees-Mogg—that great orator of the early 21st century. They do not want to be going to see a replica. It will be the most glorious white elephant.

And do we really want to move the House of Lords to QEII, with all the security implications and losing the rent that the Government gain from it? The plans for QEII are wildly extravagant: those involved want to create a roof-top terrace, and they want to demolish the existing conference hall so that the height of the temporary House of Lords Chamber is the same as the existing House of Lords Chamber. The fact is that this has become out of control.

I see the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), in her place, and we are the guardians of the public purse. Of course we have to put safety first and of course we have to do the work properly, but we do not need to have a feeding feast over 10 years or 15 years, costing between £10 billion and £20 billion, with this gold-plated option of demolishing Richmond House, moving out completely and stripping everything out of this building while we are evicted.

I end on this point: there is a compromise, and I wish my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) well. The debate has moved on, even in small things or not so small things. We were told even quite recently—I was told this by the present Leader of the House—that we had to knock down Richmond House because we needed more office space. That is a strange and quite a circular sort of argument: we need to knock down an office building to get more office workers. We do not need them. The entire civil service is now working virtually and the entire civil service will almost certainly go on to a three-day week. We have proven that we do not need an emergency Chamber in case of a disaster; we can work virtually for a few weeks or, indeed, a few months. The whole debate has moved on and we need to think again, but we do not need to delay. We can get on with the work around us now, and that is what we should do.