Charging for Access to Parliament

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I much enjoyed hearing from my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) an impassioned plea for the House to be turned into a glorified hotel with a free clock tower attached. I am not entirely convinced that that is the right order of priorities. It seems to me that the House is united in feeling that savings must be made, but that whenever a specific saving is suggested, everyone is against it.

I wish to defend the Commission against the charge that it never consults people. It does, as one will see if one reads one’s e-mails. I replied to one which dealt with the question of whether or not the bound copies of Hansard should continue to be available. I actually like re-reading my own speeches—somebody has to—and I therefore wish to receive the bound copies, but I quite understand that a very expensive process is involved. It might be appropriate for Members to keep their old copies together or to make a contribution if they want to continue to receive bound copies.

I believe that there are two clear principles when it comes to cost savings in the House. The first is that we, and our electorate, can hold the Government to account, and that anything that enables us to hold the Government to account should not be cut. That includes most of the papers that are produced for us, such as the daily Hansards, the Order Papers, and the lists of early-day motions. All the things that enable us to hold the Government to account ought to be retained, even if they are expensive; and all the things that allow our constituents to hold us to account—their freedom to visit the Galleries, to attend Committee meetings, and to exercise their important right to come to the front desk and ask to lobby us and to see us—should also be free, and not subject to any cuts.

The second principle is that we must be able to serve our constituents and meet their requirements when they have problems, and that, too, should not be subject to any cuts. It is important for Members of Parliament to have the staff they need and the facilities they need—the writing paper and the postage stamps—to deal with matters that affect their constituents’ lives.

Not a penny should be saved in those areas, and all Members of Parliament should be united in defending us against any such cuts; but—and it is a very big but—there are some things that are not essential to holding the Government to account and do not provide an essential service for our constituents. In those instances, even if the savings are small, it is important to make them. We are not only doing this in the context of Parliament’s £200 million budget; we are doing it symbolically, to show that we are not just imposing costs and cuts on our constituents, but tightening our own belts. Let me put this question to Members who do not want to charge people for going up the Clock Tower. How can we say to our constituents who are on £43,000-and-a-bit a year that they will not receive their child benefit, when we are not willing to accept even a modest charge for a visit to the Clock Tower?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend says that we must tighten our own belts. It is not our belts that we will be tightening, but the belts of our constituents who want to come and see Big Ben. I am not one of those who say that the House of Commons does not need to make savings. Indeed, I suggested a series of savings that the House could make in my opening remarks.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

As I mentioned in my own opening remarks, everyone is in favour of savings, but if we can make an additional saving, we should be pleased about it. I hope that the Commission has heard all my hon. Friend’s recommendations for savings and the recommendations of others who have spoken, because they all ought to be considered. However, it is difficult to accept that going to look at a clockwork mechanism and a large bell, however great and however splendid, is essential to the democracy of this country which has served us so well for hundreds of years. It is a curiosity, it is something of interest to do, it is a delight and a pleasure, but it is not at the heart of how we scrutinise the Government or how we serve our constituents.

We know that times are hard. If I wished to be party political, I could say that our friends on the other side had maxed out the credit card; but whether it is due to that or to bankers, the fact is that the country needs to make savings, and a charging £15 each to 9,000 people a year who want to see a clockwork machine strikes me as not unreasonable.

I seem to be in the same position as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall). I seem to be more establishment than the establishment itself. I understand that, as we have been debating the matter, a compromise has been agreed, and I am sorry about that, because I think that this would have been a right and proper thing to do.