Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 22nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment. I absolutely agree with everything that has been said. Frankly, it is a no-brainer for the Government not to agree with the amendment. Apart from anything else, if they do not, they will be seen to be offside with common practice these days in restoration projects.

If the House were to come to the Heritage Lottery Fund—I declare my interest as deputy chair of the board—with a proposal for a fairly significant grant, as the House may still do although we could not fund the whole thing, the very least we would expect is a clear strategy. It is not necessarily as simple as consultation; I mean a serious public engagement strategy which would allow us to tell who would actually benefit, how their voices had been collected and heard and how they had been reflected in the proposal. We would not consider proposals which could not provide us with that obvious proof of public benefit.

What we are considering here, for all the reasons we know and which the noble Lord has again spelt out, is a national project of the greatest public benefit that we could conceive of. By not acknowledging that in the Bill or making clear plans to involve and listen to the voice of different communities around the country, we are missing a massive opportunity. We also neglect our public duty.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

Did I follow my noble friend correctly in thinking that the lottery might fund parts of the restoration and renewal work? I would strongly deprecate that. This should be paid for by the Treasury.

[Baroness Andrews]

No, my Lords, I did not say that. I was making a hypothetical case that, were such a grant to be considered—I am not saying that it would be—it would have to satisfy different conditions. Of course I agree that this is a public project for national Treasury funding.

I have now lost my thread completely. This is the second time that my noble friend has interrupted me when I was developing my strategic thinking. I return to the principle. It is extremely important, for all the reasons we know, that this change is owned by the people we are here to serve. It is absurd not to recognise them in the Bill or to give them a voice.

We know how to do this, although it is complicated. At what point do you start involving people? How do you structure it? How do you reach out? How do you collect the voices, as it were? But we do it every day in major and minor projects around the country. It is not a miracle; it is a science.

To take just one example before I close, the National Museum Wales has, I am delighted to say, just won a national museum of the year award. In its redevelopment, which involved a great deal of new building, it involved thousands of people from all manner of excluded groups in the local and national community. The result has been transformational in their and our understanding of what people expect from a national museum.

This is not a museum. We have a much greater duty. But those principles and methodologies can certainly be adopted and followed.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I certainly agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, that we are trustees, or custodians, of this Palace of Westminster, which ultimately belongs to the public that we exist to serve. Clearly, we need to ensure that, through this programme of works, the Palace that belongs to the public and the people who occupy it are in a position to serve the public better.

I also support the need for public engagement with and consultation on these works. I would counsel one thing, however. During the debate, I have been a little worried by comments about attempts by us to help the public to understand better what this project is all about. At the moment, those of us in positions of great privilege and some power think—too often and mistakenly—that we are the ones with all the information and that we need to impart it and impose it on other people. As has been made clear by other noble Lords in their contributions, we want to understand better what the public expect from their Parliament and reflect on what they want so as to influence how we change.

However, I would go one step further: we must be frank and understand that the process of consulting people is another opportunity for us to show that we are changing and that we want to serve them better. I want us to ask about what it is that people want to see us change in terms of our behaviour as parliamentarians. If we can understand better what they want from us in terms of how we behave—to show that we take them seriously and listen to them in carrying out our work—we should consider what we need to do differently in terms of how our building is formatted, refurbished and renewed to make sure that we are better placed to show that we are listening and responding, and to give people confidence that that is what this is all about.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I echo what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, said about making much better use of the Royal Gallery. I referred to this in my speech at Second Reading. I wish him luck because it will mean taking on the fully entrenched forces of the officialdom of the House, but I will willingly make one last attempt at getting a coffee bar in the Royal Gallery. I will join the noble Lord; perhaps my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, might also commit themselves. It may be that, if all the party leaders and many noble Lords converged on a maximum point of pressure, we could persuade the authorities of the House to act. This might be the moment: if we have a series of speeches on this, a revolutionary change that would make this place far more accessible could be brought about. Part of the problem with the House of Lords is that it is largely inaccessible to the public because the points of entry are so narrow and constrained; it is almost impossible to get here unless you have an appointment with a Peer who meets you. The number of meeting places that are not offices is also limited. Perhaps we will have brought about a revolutionary change by the end of the debate.

I am very sorry for interrupting my noble friend Lady Andrews. I was anxious to interrupt her because, when she mentioned the lottery, I could see the Treasury’s eyes gleaming at the prospect of possibly being able to pass on large parts of the cost. It is important that we establish that this is absolutely a public project. If the Victorians could build this extraordinary Palace—Mr Gladstone was very mindful of the public finances—we in this generation can certainly live up to our responsibilities.

[Lord Blunkett]

For the record, Mr Gladstone came on to the scene for this particular building a bit late, did he not?

[Lord Adonis]

Actually, he was Chancellor of the Exchequer when a large part of the work was being carried out. I assure my noble friend that Gladstone took a keen interest in the allocation of the public finances; my noble friend and I can correspond on this matter afterwards.

The amendment moved by my noble friend seems at one level to be a statement of the obvious but, on another level, the fact that it needs to be stated is of some importance in itself. The two changes that he essentially wishes to make are: to enlarge the sponsor body’s duties to include promoting to the public the work of R&R; and to add to the sponsor body’s duties consulting not only Members of each House but members of the public. That should not need to be said; it ought to be obvious that that should happen. However, there are two reasons why this is important. First, I do not think that the Government are racing to accept the amendments; I am looking at the noble Earl. If so, there must be some reason why. It is precisely because the actual duties will be expanded in a way that the Government think will be distracting to the sponsor body. Why would the Government regard them in that way? They impose additional duties.

However, those duties—the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, was completely right about this—are exactly what we would and should expect of the sponsor body in two respects. First, it is a matter of self-interest: the body is going to spend a lot of money—the figure of £4 billion has been touted before but, from my intimate knowledge of how infrastructure projects go, I think that we can safely assume that it will be significantly larger. When the inevitable controversy comes, as it will, about the cost, overruns, delays and everything else, the sponsor body, your Lordships and the other House of Parliament need the ultimate protection possible, which must surely come from having engaged with the public and having proper public promotion and displays. Westminster Hall needs to be full of displays about the work that will be undertaken and we need the visitor centre to do the same. That is important. Secondly, part of the justification for the spending on this work is that it will enhance public access significantly.

To extend the point about what happens at the end of restoration and renewal, not having proper citizenship education is part of the problem. My noble friend Lord Blunkett has done more than any other Minister—in history, I would venture to suggest—to put citizenship at the core of what we teach in schools. It is hugely important. However, we still do not pay nearly enough attention to it. In particular, we do not make visiting Parliament, engaging with parliamentary institutions and meeting parliamentarians a systematic part of secondary school education, as it should be. Since the Germans’ massive renovation of the Bundestag’s beautiful old buildings in Berlin—at the behest of British architects, as it happens—they have had comprehensive programmes for schools and schoolchildren proactively to visit Berlin, tour the German parliament and meet their parliamentarians. We do not do that here. Even with all the expansion we are talking about, the creation of a visitor centre and all that, it all depends on people wanting to come here, whereas we should be proactively engaging. This problem goes to the wider issue: the further one goes from London, the more disengaged people feel from their parliamentary institutions, not least because they hardly have any contact with what goes on here. Their schools are much less likely to come here.

I am struck when I meet school parties—some I show around; many I just meet when I am walking around the Palace—and ask where they come from. They disproportionately come from London and the area immediately around. Why? Because if you have to proactively seek to come here and cover expenses and things of that kind, it will particularly be private schools—we come back to this issue—who will come here. We have to end this. We are now in a massive Brexit crisis because of the massive alienation between a large part of our people and our parliamentary institutions.

[Lord Bethell]

The noble Lord makes the point well, but I think he is too limited in his analysis of the problem. It is not just that schoolchildren do not understand the parliamentary democracy they live in. They do not see for themselves the opportunities that lie in the Civil Service and other forms of public service. There is a massive disengagement between schools and universities and the whole ethos of public service. There is a good argument that that kind of personal contact with Parliament would do a huge amount to invigorate a sense of public service that is missing at the moment, particularly in the schools to which he refers—schools outside London and non-grammar, non-independent schools.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I agree with every word the noble Lord has just said.

What I would like to see in this Bill—as noble Lords know, I always try to push things to extremes—is a duty on the sponsor body to see that, once the restoration and renewal work is completed, there are facilities and arrangements in place for every schoolchild in the country, during the course of their secondary education, to visit the Houses of Parliament, have a tour and get the opportunity to see the work we do.

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

I have to take the noble Lord to task on engagement in schools north of the south—if you see what I mean. Not enough of us take part in the Lord Speaker’s outreach programme, but many do, and I assure the noble Lord that the majority of schools I go to are not private but state schools, and they engage through citizenship. They are often either GCSE-level or sixth-form level—I have been to a couple of primary schools as well—but they do come down. With this project we have a chance to enlarge on that, but I would hate to think that people following this debate would think that we do not engage already. On the whole—I cannot speak for others—I have been to state schools, certainly not private schools.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I commend the noble Baroness on her work. I did not say that we do not engage at all; I said that we do not engage nearly enough. The overwhelming majority of state secondary school pupils across England do not have any engagement, will not have come here on a visit and will not have met their parliamentarians. We should take that as a criticism of us—this institution—because it is.

My noble friend Lord Blunkett is pushing the door further—which he does so brilliantly on these occasions —so that we at least recognise in the Bill that the public exist and that the promotion of public engagement should be a duty on the sponsor body. These amendments seem entirely uncontroversial, unless the noble Earl is going to argue that they are distracting to the work of the sponsor body. If he does, I hope that at the very least he will agree to consider that issue further. If they are distracting, we are admitting that engaging with the wider public is a distraction to the work of the very body and the restoration and renewal programme that should seek to serve this wider public interest.

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[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I fully support the amendment, although I would go one step further. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, has rightly identified the planning problems that could occur with Richmond House. I suspect that there will be equal problems with the design of the temporary Chamber for our friends down the other end—the colour of the carpet, the comfort of the Benches and so on. However, the same problems will occur when we start thinking about what this place will look like when we come back. We have been speaking about it all evening but I am referring to the kind of facilities that we want, how much it will cost and what changes there will be. No doubt that will cause delays as well, if only because the Treasury will say that the costs are too high or something like that.

I agree with the noble and learned Lord’s amendment. There should be very regular reports—maybe every six months—on the timescale of the decant and, subsequently, on the refurbishment of this place. But, if he considers bringing it back on Report, he should add something about cost. We are not very good at maintaining costs for things; he knows my views on Crossrail and HS2. Whoever is to blame, we are very good at hiding the real costs or results of programmes for several years then suddenly shocking Parliament and the public. Crossrail was on time and on budget until this time last year; now it is several years late and we do not yet know what the budget is going to be as we have not been told. People must have known about these things, as relating to HS2, several years before the problem occurred.

I hope that we will not have the same problem here. We need to be honest and transparent and set an example with respect to the changes that we have made. I hope the Minister can give us some kind of commitment that such honesty and transparency, and regular updates, will be features of rebuilding this place. It will be very difficult; there will be many changes and probably cost-overruns, which is not surprising when you are working in a building like this, but let us at least know what is going on, in good time.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I will be brief: the situation is worse than that described by my noble friend Lord Berkeley, if I can deepen his gloom. With HS2 and Crossrail, with which I was deeply familiar, by the time we came to publishing legislation we knew what the project was going to be. The project was defined; indeed, at the second stage of the HS2 Bill, which had just been agreed by the House of Commons, we knew within a few metres what the line and specification of works would be and so on. We have a defined project—it has just proved much more expensive and problematic to deliver than was conceived. The problem we face with the parliamentary rebuilding work is that we are setting up the sponsor body before we have a defined project.

There is a very good reason for that: we are literally starting from scratch and trying to decide the best way forward, and this probably is the best way forward. I have views on whether we should consider other options —we will come to that in a while—but we are currently at such an early stage of the work that we do not have the faintest clue what the costs will be. We do not have a project description; all we have is a few back-of-the-envelope, broad objectives, a very old costing on the basis of them and a few timelines plucked out of a hat. We also have the potential for massive controversy, which we can already see, about the nature of the decant, where we will go, what we will come back to and so on.

What the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, is proposing—that there should be best estimates for the timeline at the point at which the strategy is published—is perfectly sensible. There is also another reason why it should be done: it is my view that we are at such an early stage of planning, and the issues involved in the restoration and renewal of the Houses of Parliament are so great—because of the wider context referred to earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, of big questions about the future of our parliamentary democracy—that I do not believe it is sensible to be closing down significant options at this stage; we are at such a preliminary stage in devising what the project will be. I am sorry to keep making this point but, since we will be returning to it in September, I am very anxious to keep it open: we should include the question of where the decant should be—there is very good reason to propose that it should not be somewhere immediately adjacent to the Houses of Parliament but could be in another part of the United Kingdom—and where the ultimate Parliament will be.

I agree with what the noble and learned Lord said. On the basis of my knowledge of big infrastructure projects and the stage we are at currently, it is very plausible that there could be three or four years’ delay before the decant starts. If the decant does not start until 2028, we will not move back here until between 2038 and 2040. To put some context on this, phase 2 of HS2 is currently scheduled to open in 2032. So, relatively speaking, it is going to take much longer to complete the restoration and renewal of Parliament than to build a 330-mile high-speed line, which is the biggest single infrastructure project in the world outside the Republic of China. Keeping a few options open at this stage is sensible in terms of planning. We should take advantage of the situation at the moment to think a bit more broadly about where we intend our parliamentary democracy to go over the 100 to 150 years ahead, and in doing so demonstrate the same vision that our Victorian forebears showed when they designed these Houses of Parliament to be the centre of an imperial legislature in the 1840s.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, I feel that we have already segued into later debates. With due respect to my noble friend, I have to challenge his “back of an envelope” assessment. If he comes to my office, I will show him a huge amount of paperwork—documents that some of us have worked on over the last couple of years. If it was all on the back of an envelope, the envelope would be enormous.

We have gone a little wider than the amendment by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, but I do think he is on to something. I understand that the question of the Ministry of Defence and the car park has now been resolved—but, I suspect, given the extra cost that would have been involved had it not been resolved, that public attention might well have encouraged them to move a little more quickly than they did. Again, we come back to what we are really talking about here: engagement, information and openness. The more that we can say what is intended to be done, the greater will be our ability to monitor the project.

In most large projects that I know, there is some slippage. Noble Lords are right that this project is at a relatively early stage, but quite a lot of planning has gone into it already. We do not need to say, “This will happen on 3 January 2022”, but it should be possible to have an idea of a timeframe for when certain things are likely to happen. That would help with public engagement and the engagement of colleagues around the House.

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[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I am very grateful to those who have taken part in this debate and indicated some support for the general approach I was taking. I am very grateful to the Minister for his response and thank him specifically for his update on the planning in relation to Richmond House—although I think it was very clear, or at least implicit in what he said, that there are still possibilities of that taking time. There is the possibility of a challenge if Westminster City Council were to give positive approval. So it is quite clear that there could be some factors that could delay decant.

As the debate unfolded, it seemed that there was some support for having some kind of reporting back to Parliament. I note and understand the point the noble Earl made that if we do it at the consultation stage it could raise expectations, and that the appropriate point would be after the outline business case had been made. He said that if there was a material change, the sponsor body might have to come back. I will reflect and consult with others on whether we want to put something in the Bill on that, rather than just leaving it open-ended about what would be a material change. We may want to do something that would require the sponsor body to continue to update us after the initial approval of the outline business case.

[Lord Adonis]

I thank the noble and learned Lord for giving way. To some extent, this debate is unreal, because there are already dates out there. We have been debating the dates of 2025 for the decant and 2035 for moving in. At every stage of the preparation of the plans, the questions that will be asked are, “Are you sticking to the 2025 date or not? If not, when is it moving to and how long will it be before you get back?”. The idea that the sponsor body—with its chair and chief exec—will be able to avoid publishing and giving its view on this issue is entirely unreal.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

The noble Lord makes an important point. When I was on the Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster, our expectation was that we might decant in 2023, but it is now clear that that is no longer the case. Dates have been put out there. We need to maintain public confidence in the project, in terms of not only time but cost. Having been one of the first Members of the Scottish Parliament, I recall well what that can mean in relation to building a parliamentary building. To maintain public confidence, it is important that explanations are given. Often things are no fault of anyone—they are just circumstance —but often it helps to explain what the circumstances are. Therefore, it might merit considering whether we can come back to this at a later stage. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.

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[Lord Bethell]

My Lords, I will first say a few words in support of the excellent amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace. It makes complete sense to have someone in the Chamber who is able to explain to us the proceedings and progress of the project whom we can ask questions of. To have that in the Bill makes sense. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on how that could be achieved.

My amendments have a different purpose, which is to get the voice of the public on the sponsor body from the outset. There is some flexibility in its current composition, described in Part 1 of Schedule 1: the sponsor body will have between seven and 13 members, between three and five of whom will be external members, including a chair. Between four and eight will be Members of Parliament. Members of Parliament or Peers will be in the majority, which makes sense. But there is not much room in those numbers for somebody who could perhaps represent the public and champion issues such as access and education. One of them will need to be a chair, whose focus will be on driving the project forward and managing the sponsor body itself. I imagine one might be a leading person from the construction industry, and another might have major project experience or heritage experience. That is why I would like to ask the Minister how the voice of the public could be best represented at a very high level from the beginning, when the brief for this project is being decided and the strategy formulated.

In many ways, there are fewer concerns about the delivery authority. It will have nine members, who will be more broadly recruited, with only two executive directors and the rest non-executive directors. It is really the sponsor body where I detect a bottleneck. It would be extremely helpful if the Minister explained how it could be tweaked to give more access to a voice from the public.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, the amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, is sensible because it is not otherwise clear in the Bill how the sponsor body will interact with the two Houses of Parliament. Under Schedule 1, there will be a chair who is specifically required not to be a Member of either House of Parliament; then there will be between four and eight persons among the membership who will be Members of this House or the House of Commons. By virtue of the fact that they are here, people will expect them to give accounts of what is happening, but they will have no formal standing. They will not formally represent the sponsor body and it is not clear, for example, how one would put questions to that body.

If we are not careful—this comes back to the 19th-century experience—in order to interact, people will want to get at the chair and the chief exec, who are not Members of either House. A Select Committee will be set up so that it can call them before it and interact with them. However, it would be more sensible if Members of the two Houses of Parliament are required to be members of the sponsor body. It could be rather like the way we interact with the Church Commissioners; I cannot remember whether it is the Second Church Estates Commissioner who is a Member of one House or who represents the Church Commissioners here. Is it the Bishops? Anyway, it is possible to interact directly with them. Having a similar relationship would be perfectly sensible, given how important this body and its parliamentary work will be over more than a decade.

The noble and learned Lord said that he did not intend to press his amendment; what he is actually doing may come from his experience of the work in Holyrood. He may be anticipating exactly the problems and issues we will have. It is as well to get this right in the Bill, rather than having to make significant adjustments and take what might be avoiding action, such as setting up a special committee to interact with the sponsor body because we have no provision for the body itself to have a direct relationship with the two Houses of Parliament.

[Lord McNicol of West Kilbride]

My Lords, Amendment 22 brings our attention to the relationship between the sponsor body and both Houses. The sponsor body must remain engaged with the wider Parliament throughout the work. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, made a number of points in this regard.

Amendments 24 and 25 seek to create within the body a new champion for education and a champion for participatory democracy, as touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell. The benefits of Parliament for educational and participative democracy purposes are well established and were discussed earlier, so I have no need to go back over them. I hope that the sponsor body will agree to promote both these aspects.

Meanwhile, Amendment 28 in the name of my noble friend Lady Smith would introduce the idea of a report to ensure that the Palace is maintained beyond the works. This is an attempt to look to the future and ensure that the Estate cannot fall into its current level of disrepair. The can has been kicked down the road for far too long and work must begin as soon as it has been agreed, but there would be great benefit in reporting on how these works will preserve the long-term future. Be it in a separate account or as part of the pre-existing reporting arrangements, this issue should be given consideration.

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[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend in opposing the amendment. This is not an imposition we should place on the sponsor body.

I start with a technical point, because the amendment is deficient in that it says:

“The Sponsor Body must make arrangements for the report to be laid before and debated by both Houses of Parliament”.


We can impose a duty on the sponsor body to lay a report before Parliament; we cannot give power to the sponsor body to make arrangements for debates in either House of Parliament.

I would link the substance of the amendment to our earlier discussions and relate it to a point that has not been raised and which leads me to be somewhat surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is supporting this amendment. If we have a temporary Parliament elsewhere, it is not only the cost of relocating Parliament, the cost of relocating parliamentary staff, the cost of relocating government so that it is near Parliament and the cost imposed on all those bodies that are in London because they want to make representations to government and Parliament and who would have to move, but, in relation to what we were discussing earlier, Parliament needs to be accessible to the people. They need to be able to come here. We need their visits and they have to be able to come and watch what is going on. They can do that because London is at the centre of the transport infrastructure—it is easier to get to London.

Where else in the country will you be able to create a transport infrastructure in the time available for this temporary relocation so that schoolchildren and any member of the public who wants to come and observe Parliament can do so? It will be extraordinarily difficult—indeed, impossible. London has the convenience that enables us to fulfil that particular function. The proposal is not feasible and it is not a burden that we should impose on the sponsor body, because it has far too much to do already.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I am surprised that, as a resident of Hull, the noble Lord thinks that London should be the centre of everyone’s attention in transport infrastructure.

[Lord Norton of Louth]

I did not say it should be; I said it is. That is the reality.

[Lord Adonis]

That does not need to be the case. Depending where you choose to locate your temporary Parliament, it could have good transport connections. I understand that we are talking about 2028 or 2029 for the move. That will be after the first phase of HS2 is opened in 2025, which will make a dramatic change to the economic geography of this country. I am trying to persuade my good friend the Mayor of West Midlands, Andy Street, to rename Birmingham International as “UK Central” because that is where it will be in terms of accessibility. It will be more readily accessible to most parts of England in terms of proximity than will London when HS2 is opened. The noble Lord has set out an old way of thinking which does not take account of the other changes that are taking place.

To bring Parliament closer to a large part of the country in the interim period is desirable, as we are going to have to move out anyway. The noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst, asked what is going to happen afterwards. The plan is that we would move back here. However, there will have to be an interim which will incur huge expense. The doing up of the QEII Centre and Richmond House and all the associated facilities will involve massive expense.

The suggestion in the amendment is well worth looking at. It would not involve any delay. I know the noble Lord is anxious that the sins of the past—ceaseless delay—are put right, but there will be no delay. It would involve the presentation of an assessment of the option alongside the presentation of the plans. Clause 7(2) provides that no work can take place until specific parliamentary approval is given. It states:

“No Palace restoration works, other than preparatory works, may be carried out before the Sponsor Body has obtained Parliamentary approval for … Delivery Authority proposals in respect of those works, and … funding, up to an amount specified in the approval resolution, in respect of phase two works”—


and it sets out elaborate provisions thereafter.

So there would be no further delay. Other work would be carried out alongside it; it keeps an option open; and it takes account of changing circumstances, including the dramatic improvement of the transport infrastructure which will make other locations accessible. It also meets the wider concerns which most of us share—the reason this issue is so live—that Parliament is too remote from the people, and not having all of the centres of government and parliamentary authority located in London would be one way of distributing power more evenly across the United Kingdom.

My own view is that this is a good idea whose time may not quite have come—it certainly has not come at 10.55 pm, a few days before Parliament adjourns for the Summer Recess, with 10 Members present in the House. But its time may be coming and, in the context of wider debates that will take place on constitutional reform in the light of Brexit—including what might well be a decisive move towards a federal United Kingdom in the not too distant future—may come soon. Therefore, making preparations to assess it now is sensible.

I am reasonably laid back about it because of the timeframe for the work. We will not, in any event, have the presentation of the full costed plan to which Parliament can give approval for two years, as we were told at the beginning of Second Reading by the Leader—but I suspect it could be longer than that before we even get the plan. We may not move to decanting into the temporary facilities for the best part of a decade, and it could be the best part of two decades before the work is finished. I suspect, therefore, that what is needed at the moment—as I am anxious to do and as my noble friend did in her very able speech—is to plant the idea in the public mind. In particular, we should encourage political leaders outside London—who are already starting to be interested in this idea—to begin to develop it further. The context of this may change dramatically in the years ahead.

[Lord Norton of Louth]

As noble Lords have said, the reason for the delay is the complexity of having to adapt the estate here, which just emphasises the difficulty of creating or finding space elsewhere where we can do what we are seeking to do here.

[Lord Adonis]

In many ways, it is actually much easier to do it if you are building on a greenfield site next to a major transport interchange such as Birmingham International, where the National Exhibition Centre is. That would be much simpler than the hugely complex, difficult and historic estate here. I wrestled with exactly the same argument on the question of whether we should upgrade a 200-year-old railway line to provide additional rail capacity between our major cities or build a completely new line. Often, building completely new is a good thing.

This is a debate that will run for the next few years, and we have done a good job of planting the idea. I strongly encourage my friends and colleagues who are mayors of the major cities and city regions in the Midlands and the north to advance this idea further. I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst, but I suspect that he has not heard the last of this, by any means. Whatever decision is taken in this Bill, we will return to this, because it is a fundamental issue about the governance of the United Kingdom, alongside what will be a £5 billion, £10 billion or £15 billion investment—who knows what the final figure will be?—in the future of Parliament. I do not think that we will be able to keep these big strategic issues off the agenda.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on this amendment because it has started a debate which I have supported for a long time. Maybe she should have gone one step further. We are talking about a report on the temporary relocation of Parliament outside London, but if you are going to build a new temporary Parliament, be it in Richmond House or outside London, there is a cost attached, and I suspect that the cost would be not very different either way. The work in Richmond House will not be prefab but extremely glossy, expensive and difficult, as it so often is with building in a capital city. And we can forget for the moment what will be done in the QEII—although I suspect it will be lovely. There is actually an argument for building something somewhere outside London, as my noble friend Lord Adonis said, and staying there.

This place has to be refurbished because, as many noble Lords have said, it is in a bad state, but it could be used for educational purposes and conferences. That is what they do in Hungary: they built a parliament in Budapest—almost mirrored on this place—and the architect got a second prize for doing it. Hungary now has a parliament with a single chamber and the other half, which I have been to, is used as a conference and education centre. It is a lovely building and it works really well. If we really wanted to maintain a link with this place, we could still use it for the State Opening of Parliament and then go and do our work somewhere else. There are a lot of options.