Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 8th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate all the noble Lords who have got us this far; it has taken a great deal of work over many years. The noble Baroness the Leader of the House mentioned many names and I expect that there are quite a few others. The debate has persuaded me that we need to look separately at the preservation of this building and at what Parliament does and where. As my noble friend Lord Foulkes said, this place could be turned into a very good museum of democracy.

Some noble Lords will have gone to a meeting in Portcullis House several years ago, at which we were first told about the various plans for getting us out of these places—or not, as the case may be. I remember one long-standing Member of the House of Commons, the first to ask a question, said: “Don’t you realise that if we move out of this building, it will be the end of parliamentary democracy?” It is an interesting question, especially now. Maybe we have reached it, maybe we have not, but we need to look at this separately. This is a wonderful building; it could be a museum, as my noble friend said, or we could come back here.

I will talk briefly about two things. The first is the issue of fire, which several noble Lords have spoken about, and the second is access of location. We had a Starred Question on fire in your Lordships’ Chamber about a month ago, after the Notre Dame fire. Subsequently, I had a meeting with some of the officials who do a wonderful job in dealing with fire protection in this building. We have fire detection and sprinklers in the cellar, which is probably the most difficult place, but there are many more problems associated with the roof, not just of Westminster Hall but of these buildings, too. There are three things to look at: detection, extinguishing and evacuation.

It is clear that they are doing pretty well in getting a new system of detection around, even in the roof. Extinguishing fires there is extremely difficult, but the new system, Water Mist, uses much less water and is extremely effective. I suggest that before any construction work starts on this building, a water mist system should be installed for the whole building on a temporary basis, with temporary pipes or whatever. That would be a great protection against a fire during construction. As many noble Lords have said, the biggest risk of fire is during construction. We are a royal palace, and there have already been two royal palaces that have caught fire in the Queen’s reign. However careful everybody is, it can happen, as many noble Lords have said.

If this place is going to be reconstructed as a Parliament, we need to look at evacuation. Have many noble Lords wondered: if the Committee Corridor were completely full of people, which sometimes happens, where is the way out? There is a fire door by the main entrance, but if that is shut because of a fire on the other side, can 1,000 or 2,000 people at the Lords end get out in half an hour—which is apparently the fire resistance of the doors—down two very narrow staircases? It is something to think about. It could happen tomorrow, but if we are rebuilding, we ought at least to ensure that we have proper evacuation facilities, including for people in wheelchairs or with mobility problems, as many noble Lords have said. That all needs to be sorted out before we start.

My final point concerns moving us to the QEII centre, and the Commons to Richmond House. As some noble Lords including my noble friend Lord Foulkes asked, how are we going to get from one to the other, through the mass of tourists that we see, particularly in the summer months? It is not easy. We will certainly not get back in seven minutes to vote, and communications between the House of Lords and the House of Commons will be extremely difficult. I cannot see why nobody has looked properly at the Foreign Office. We do not have an empire, as we did when it was built. I know that the Foreign Office will be loath to get out of their lovely building—maybe we can promise that it can return in 10 years when it is all finished—but at least it would be a bit closer to Richmond House. Maybe there are other buildings as well. We need to make sure that we do not completely separate the Commons and the Lords, because that would not be a good thing at all.

I believe that we should look again at my noble friend Lord Adonis’s suggestion of moving out completely, because in a new building, wherever it is, we could have the education facilities, the public access and everything else that we do not get here. We are rightly concerned about that and it would certainly help the north/south divide if we made everything less London-centric.

Finally, my noble friend Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe is very keen that we consider the possibility of selling off the second-hand bits and pieces from this building if they are no longer used. I think that he is talking about the floor tiles that have been replaced over many years; he thinks that he has a market for them as a souvenir of the old House of Commons or House of Lords. He has asked me to say that he will put down an amendment in Committee to support this idea. It will not fund the new building, but I suppose that it might help.

Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

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

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, I am participating in this debate as one of the four Members of your Lordships’ House on the shadow sponsor body. I speak from that perspective, but I am not speaking for them. I hope that distinction is clear. I am certainly not commenting on the location, or desirability or otherwise, of the Holocaust memorial. I want to reflect on what this debate shows about the extent of the powers of the shadow sponsor body. As far as I can tell, there is no real master plan for the whole world heritage site. Decisions are made in a slightly piecemeal way, involving major players such as the city council and so on, but in so far as there is co-ordination between them, it has always been the authorities of both Houses of Parliament who do it. If under this amendment that locus was taken away from the parliamentary authorities and handed to the shadow sponsor board, I suggest your Lordships would need to reflect on that.

The role of the shadow sponsor body is, fundamentally, to do what Parliament instructs. Therefore, if Parliament wanted us to take on this role, we would obey. However, as a parliamentarian, I would be quite nervous about handing over an important contribution to the overall planning process to the shadow sponsor body, which has been set up for an entirely different purpose: delivering the restoration and renewal of the fabric of this building.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, is a thoughtful person who might take away that point and reflect on it, because it is entirely possible for the thrust of his arguments to be fulfilled, but perhaps not by the shadow sponsor body. In many ways, the amendment tabled and spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, is another example—it will not be the only one today—of an interesting relationship between the work of the sponsor body and that of the parliamentary authorities. For me, as both a member of that body and a parliamentarian, what is important is clarity. It is less about who exactly is doing what than being absolutely clear about who is doing it, so that, as decisions are made, we know how they have been made and by whom. The lines between some responsibilities are a little blurred, which makes it quite difficult for us.

We need to be careful not to use this Bill in a way that muddies those waters and makes it less clear where such responsibilities lie. At the end of the day, the shadow sponsor body and the sponsor body when it becomes substantive have their role to play, but the parliamentary authorities and Members of Parliament will also continue to have theirs.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness said that the sponsor board was set up to manage the renewal of the Parliament building, but Clause 1(3)—we have talked about it many times—covers all the buildings that Parliament might sit in, even temporarily. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, is concerned about the possible management roles of, and interaction between, the different organisations, as are many of us. It would be useful if the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, could clarify that.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

I am very pleased to. This is something of a moving picture. When the shadow sponsor body was first set up, it was not envisaged that it would have management of the Northern Estate programme, which has emerged. The Bill provides a framework in which Parliament could decide—to be honest—to ask the shadow sponsor body to do anything it liked, but just because it can does not mean that it should. There has to be reflection always on whether a particular task really sits within the skills and parameters of the sponsor body, which is why I have some concerns about the amendment effectively asking the shadow sponsor body to engage in the planning process on behalf of Parliament. If Parliament wants that, we will do it, but I am a little nervous about it and think that role sits more comfortably with the House authorities.

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[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who contributed to this debate and my noble friend Lord Cormack for tabling his amendment. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, I understand the sentiment behind it and agree that, if planning applications for works adjacent to the Palace were submitted, the sponsor body would clearly need to seek guidance on whether those works might impede the R&R programme and, if necessary, raise objections. Prior to the appointment of the shadow sponsor body, under the House authorities the R&R programme has held annual conferences for neighbours such as Westminster City Council, the GLA, Transport for London, Westminster Abbey and the Metropolitan Police. The sponsor body plans to continue these conferences, in order to update partners on the progress of the R&R programme. Close engagement will continue.

Clause 2(2)(b) already places a duty on the sponsor body to make strategic decisions relating to the carrying out of parliamentary building works, and this would include responding to planning applications that may impede the works. Therefore, while we recognise the importance of the principle behind this amendment, given that this is something that the sponsor body already has the power to do in the relevant circumstances, I do not believe it needs to be prescribed in the Bill.

A number of noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Cormack, Lord Forsyth and Lord King, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, raised particular concerns around the Holocaust memorial project planned to be located in Victoria Tower Gardens, which is run by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government. I assure noble Lords that, before deciding on Victoria Tower Gardens, the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation, an advisory board to the MHCLG which has cross-party support and is co-chaired by my noble friend Lord Pickles and Ed Balls, conducted an extensive search for possible locations and considered almost 50 sites in central London. Visibility, accessibility, availability and affordability were taken into account during this detailed process. The foundation identified Victoria Tower Gardens as a potential site for the memorial and, following investigations into its feasibility, recommended it to the Government in January 2016 as the best choice.

My noble friends Lord Cormack and Lord Forsyth, and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, raised the possibility of the Holocaust memorial being situated at the Imperial War Museum. Noble Lords will certainly be aware that that was carefully considered along with, as I said, many other locations. However, Victoria Tower Gardens was identified as the site capable of meeting the Government’s aspiration for the new national memorial.

A key factor in choosing the location was the visibility it afforded to the memorial. As my noble friends Lord Polak and Lord Pickles said, in the shadow of Parliament, the memorial will encourage visitors to learn about the challenging decisions that our leaders had to make in the lead up to, during and in the aftermath of the Holocaust.

My noble friends Lord Cormack, Lord King, Lord Forsyth and Lord Polak, and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, all touched on the important issue of security. We are fully aware of the security implications associated with the environs of the Palace of Westminster and are in regular contact with representatives of the Parliamentary Security Department, the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure and the Metropolitan Police. We have been advised on physical and operational security measures to mitigate risks and are confident that the proposed site would be secure. Queuing visitors will be confined to the paths immediately adjacent to the memorial itself, and all visitors will require a pre-booked ticket.

Moreover, as my noble friend Lady Altmann said, the planned design will lead to improvements in Victoria Tower Gardens. The vast majority of the public space will be retained and improved, with more accessible seating and a new boardwalk along the embankment.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and my noble friend Lord King asked about the timetable for the project. As my noble friend Lord Pickles outlined, subject to planning permission, work on the site is expected to begin in 2020, with the Holocaust memorial opening in late 2022; that is well before the R&R programme works will commence. A detailed delivery plan has been developed and robust project management arrangements are in place to ensure that it remains on track, with engagement with specialist contractors throughout the course of the works.

[Lord Berkeley]

The noble Lord, Lord King, mentioned the construction time and suggested that it might be longer. He also suggested that the contractors would need quite a lot of the garden for temporary works while they build the memorial. Has the Minister any idea of whether any of the garden will be able to remain open during the construction phase?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am afraid that because this project does not relate specifically to the R&R programme, I do not have that information. But I am sure I will be able to find out and will write to the noble Lord.

My noble friend Lord Cormack raised the issue of the decant. We will come to that in a later group so, if it is okay with noble Lords, I will now turn to the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Stowell.

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Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

2A: Clause 1, page 2, line 2, at end insert—
“(4) The Sponsor Body must ensure that the first works carried out as part of the Parliamentary building works are to ensure that all buildings undergoing works are provided with—(a) a fully automatic fire alarm system achieving BS5839 L1/P1 standard; and (b) a fully automatic water mist suppression system.(5) Exceptions to the requirement under subsection (4)(a) may be justified only on grounds of practical feasibility and must be given prior approval by the Sponsor Body.(6) If, for reasons of practical feasibility, the requirement under subsection (4)(b) cannot be delivered, the Sponsor Body must approve an alternative fire suppression solution before further works may commence.”

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 2A, 2B and 16A, which are all in my name. These are all about fire. We have had several debates in your Lordships’ House about the risk of fire in this building. As we saw at Notre Dame in Paris a few weeks ago when the roof caught fire, there are issues about how we protect roofs and the building both when it is in use and when there are contractors on site. Many noble Lords will have seen the results of fires. I think the Queen has had bad fires in two palaces during her long reign, and we have had two fires in Glasgow and in many other places. Having spent quite a lot of time looking at fire prevention and the consequences in the Channel Tunnel and other long tunnels and in other buildings, I suppose that fire is of great concern to me. I am very grateful to two officers of the House, John Bradbury and Malcolm McBride, who have helped me and discussed the issues and the problems with me. I am also grateful to Stewart Kidd, who is a past secretary-general of the British Automatic Fire Sprinkler Association.

When we come to fire, three separate issues need to be discussed: detection; evacuation of people; and suppression—that is, how to put the fire out. I think the authorities in your Lordships’ House and the other place have made progress in detection. There are certainly very good systems in the basement, and I know that they are doing some things to detect fire in the roof. I will come to evacuation later. It is fine to have a fire detected, but if you are not going to let the building burn to the ground, you have to suppress the fire before it goes too far. I know we have good procedures in this House when the contractors are working on the roof, and I am sure they are very well policed, but there is still a risk. Given the special nature of this building and that, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said earlier, our job is to protect Parliament, we have to take these issues extremely seriously. That is why I put these amendments down. They are probing amendments, and I hope to carry on discussing the various issues in the amendments with Ministers, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and other people after this debate.

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[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for tabling these amendments on fire safety and for his continued interest in this extremely important subject, and I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate.

I assure noble Lords that fire safety is recognised as being of paramount importance. As the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, said, it is very much on the mind and agenda of the sponsor body. It was good to hear that from somebody on that body, which had far more weight than my saying it on her behalf. One of the reasons these works are urgent is because of the alarming number of fires that have been caught just in time around the Palace. This is why we have 24-hour fire-safety patrols, and, more importantly, why full decant is required as soon as possible.

As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, the tragic fire of Notre-Dame was a stark reminder to us all of the risks to this historic building. There is no doubt that the best way to avoid a similar incident here is to get on with the job of protecting the thousands of people working here and the millions who come to visit, as the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, rightly said. The Bill is clear that the sponsor body must have regard to,

“the need to ensure that those works are carried out with a view to ensuring the safety and security of people who work in Parliament and of members of the public”.

Clearly, this will require the sponsor body and delivery authority to ensure that the Palace is as safe as reasonably practicable from the risk of fire during construction and subsequently in service. Indeed, as the noble Baroness, said, one of the key themes highlighted by the shadow sponsor body is for its vision of the programme to,

“ensure high standards of health, safety and wellbeing and provide appropriate protection for the building and those in it”.

Under the Bill, the sponsor body will be required to lay detailed proposals before Parliament for approval, and the Motion passed by both Houses last year requires that those proposals must include measures to ensure fire safety, among other factors. Clause 7 specifies that no Palace restoration works, other than preparatory works, may be carried out before the sponsor body has obtained parliamentary approval of these proposals. It defines these “preparatory works” as,

“initial design works, and … other works that do not affect the continued functioning of the Palace of Westminster for the purposes of either House of Parliament”.

As noble Lords will be aware, and indeed as the noble Lord said, the current work carried out by the Strategic Estates team to keep this place functioning is operated during restricted timeframes in order for the business of Parliament not to be affected. For example, the ongoing work on the cast iron roof programme can be conducted only when the House is not sitting and work must be stopped immediately if a complaint is made on grounds of noise by an MP or Peer. This sort of example highlights the need for swift progress to be made in decanting both Houses so that the sponsor body and delivery authority can get on with R&R, including the installation of the necessary fire-detection and prevention measures.

The Bill requires at Clause 6 that Parliament and the sponsor body enter into a parliamentary relationship agreement, which will contain commitments around the safety of the Palace, including mitigating fire risks. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, spoke on 25 April and at Second Reading on his understandable concerns about the fire safety of the Palace prior to the works beginning. Until the Palace is handed over to the sponsor body, the House authorities remain responsible for fire safety and have put in place a number of measures to protect the Palace and the roofs, as he mentioned, in particular.

As the noble Lord will be aware, Parliament’s fire safety strategy sets out particular requirements that will need to be considered as part of restoration and renewal. This includes the installation of a full water mist or water sprinkler system, although, as the noble Lords, Lord Stunell and Lord McNicol, said, we also need to ensure that we are fleet of foot with respect to technological advances. Already, the current fire safety improvement project has installed a water mist system throughout the basement, and it is operational. This was following lessons learned from the devastating fire at Glasgow School of Art, where the sprinklers had been installed but not turned on.

In addition, fire safety improvement works include having automatic smoke detection systems in most of the roof spaces across the Palace, and coverage of the remaining spaces will happen by December this year. The House authorities have also compartmentalised the roof space and extended the regular fire safety patrols to include the roofs. In the Palace more generally, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, there are now more than 700 fire doors in operation and strict requirements for all contractors to abide by the highest fire safety standards. I can reassure all noble Lord that those high fire safety standards will continue to apply throughout the works. In his amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, makes a specific point about the fully automatic fire alarm system achieving the L1/P1 standard. I am aware that this level of detection is already written into Parliament’s fire safety strategy requirements.

Turning to his amendment regarding evacuation of the Palace, and the observations of the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, at present, the fire risk management team carries out evacuation drills of all parliamentary buildings once a year; the Palace itself is evacuated twice a year. However, I accept his comment that it has proved difficult to stage these evacuations while the House is sitting. There have been previous evacuation trials involving volunteers in the Chambers and Committee Rooms; we will obviously continue to work to make sure that we do the best we can in this regard and, if there is more that can be done, we will look into it. Furthermore, it is expected that as part of the design works for R&R, the principal designers will use specific computer software to model evacuation routes, capacity and timings.

I cannot stress enough the importance that we place on fire safety. I hope the noble Lord will recognise that in the answers I have given. I fully support the principle of his amendments but, in light also of the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, we do not believe they need to be, or should be, included in the Bill. This is an extremely important issue and something that will be covered in the parliamentary relationship agreement, which we believe is a more appropriate vehicle for this kind of information. I hope that, in the light of my comments, the noble Lord is to a degree reassured. I assure him that we will continue to have this as our highest priority.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her comprehensive response. I am much more reassured than I was before, but not totally reassured. I will keep watching this. I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken, including the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for putting me right on one or two things. That has been useful. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, who has had first-hand experience in this area.

I said that my amendments were probing, and of course one should not put particular technological solutions in a Bill like this because things might move on, as noble Lords have said. The key point is to have a debate about these issues and for the Government to be aware of them.

Corners can still be cut in any building. I recall that when I was first in your Lordships’ House, a long time ago, I had locked myself out of my house and so slept here, in the family room downstairs. I had a very comfortable night but in the morning I went to see the then Black Rod and said, “You said you patrolled everything once an hour”. He said, “We must have patrolled the family room”, but I said, “Well, the door squeaks so I would have heard it. I just don’t believe you”. People cut corners; that is human nature. So, in addition to the patrols, detection and suppression is vital.

I pay tribute to the work that is going on to get into this. We have to keep going and make sure that as work moves forward these issues are taken into account, as well as the evacuation. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 2A withdrawn.

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[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, before the Minister answers, I am a great believer in trying to get as many SMEs to bid as possible, but one has to think about the risks they will be required to take, as well as the conditions of contract and the penalties if it is late. You can imagine one or two big contractors being given the overall responsibility to do this, because they are the only people who can manage the risk. There will be a rush to get this done. Wherever the supply of timber, stone, other materials and expertise comes from, we will have to work very hard if we want to get real SMEs to do this, as so many noble Lords expect. It will not happen unless we work very positively towards it.

[Baroness Wheeler]

My Lords, I am pleased that this group of amendments is being debated here today to deal with the responsibilities the sponsor body will have, in particular those relating to the contracts to be awarded. I thank the Minister for the Government’s Amendment 3 on the social responsibilities of the sponsor body, which fulfils their promise in the Commons to address the concern raised by my honourable friend Chris Matheson: that contracts have regard to the prospective contractor’s policy on both CSR and employment policies and procedures. The company’s wider attitude to social responsibility has to be a key consideration when awarding contracts.

On employment practices, we welcome the specific reference to companies that have undertaken blacklisting activities which will lead to their exclusion from consideration. This shameful practice has previously seen businesses compile files on thousands of workers, recording details of their political and trade union activities to prevent them gaining employment in their respective trade. Sadly, there is evidence that blacklisting has remained rife in recent years, and this is an important step not least because many construction staff currently working on building sites are employed by businesses which have previously been convicted of such unlawful behaviour. In such a prestigious project as R&R, it is important that Parliament makes a stand and warns businesses that if they neglect their social responsibilities, are not up to scratch on their employment practices or engage in illegal blacklisting, they will not play a role in restoration and renewal projects and will not be awarded contracts.

I fully support my noble friend Lord Blunkett’s Amendment 9. He is right to underline that the economic benefits of the work have to be available in all areas of the UK. This was again a key theme from noble Lords at Second Reading. We must make it clear that this is a project for the whole country and that all the rewards, including for businesses, are felt in all areas. I particularly endorse the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, on skills and apprenticeships, which was also a familiar theme at Second Reading.

In summary, government Amendments 26, 27 and 30, placing a duty on the sponsor body to include information on contractors’ size and areas of operation in its annual report, are welcome and will help to provide the transparency and accountability needed. Finally, on employment-related issues and the importance of ensuring full staff consultation on the R&R programme and project, at Second Reading my noble friend Lady Smith asked the noble Earl to confirm that there would be full engagement with staff and their representative unions. I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed this and reassured the House that the Government fully recognise its importance.

Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

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

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I had not intended to take part in this debate—I have an amendment a little later—but it seems to me that we are touching on an extremely important subject. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for tabling these amendments. Following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has just said, we need to make some practical suggestions. I entirely agree with him when he says we must have exhibitions in Westminster Hall—of course we must; people must know what we are doing—but we need to take them out to the country. I would like to see an exhibition on our restoration and renewal programme in every town and city hall in the country. It is not impossible—indeed, it would be very easy to do it—and modern technology makes it easy to simulate, project, let people have virtual reality shows and all the rest of it. We ought to go to every town and city in the country, so that whether it is Lincoln, where I live, or Wolverhampton, the city next to the constituency I represented for 40 years, people should be able to go and see.

There should be a follow-up, of course, and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is right that we should get as many schoolchildren as possible, because it should be part of the citizenship education of every child in this country to come to Parliament. Citizenship is a Cinderella subject; it is badly neglected in many schools. They pay lip service to it, but do not engage in the way they should.

I go further, because I believe we should also endeavour to ensure that people in every university in the country know what we are doing. After all, it is from the universities of this country that most elected parliamentarians —and, indeed, most appointed parliamentarians—in the future will come. If we are to engage in a proper way, we need to do it systematically, practically and with concrete suggestions such as those I am putting forward. Whether it is part of the renewal body’s remit to draw up that programme or whether it wishes to set up some committee of both Houses to discuss the practicalities, that detail is a little further down the line, but that it should be done is very important. Indeed, it must be done.

We are embarking on an enormously expensive exercise. I believe it is totally justified. Democracy is beyond price, and this is the greatest secular building in our country, but it belongs to everyone. This is the people’s Palace—the people’s Parliament. They should know what is being done, why and how. After all, at the end of the day they are paying for it. I would like to see a practical programme drawn up, and nobody would be better able to direct and help in that than the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. If he wanted to get a few like-minded souls around him, I for one would very happily be involved.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I will just correct the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, because he said this place belongs to everyone. With respect, it does not. We were talking about having a coffee bar in the Royal Gallery—which is a wonderful idea—but a few years ago I asked if I could have a concert there in aid of a charity. I asked Black Rod—not the present Black Rod, of course—who was in charge of the room. He said, “No, you can’t”. I asked, “Why?”. He said, “It belongs to Her Majesty and she won’t allow it”. I asked, “Who advises Her Majesty?”. He said, “I do, and I shall advise her not to”. I asked, “Why is that?”. He said, “It’ll wear the floor out”. It was one of the stupidest reasons. In planning, building regulations and everything else, this is technically a royal Palace. We have to sort all these things out before we end up finding we cannot do something because of some idea that has been around here ever since the place was built.

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[Lord Berkeley]

I am a bit confused because the Minister said that accepting my noble friend’s amendment would divert the sponsor body’s activity from the main activity, which is to build a new Palace, but he also said that it is doing it anyway. If it is doing it anyway, the amendment is surely all right.

[Earl Howe]

The point I was seeking to make is that if you set out in the Bill something that looks quite distinct and separate from the main task that the sponsor body has before it, you risk distracting it. What we are saying to the sponsor body is, “Yes, public engagement is vital, you are already doing it, so you should do it in the best way you can because you know best how to deliver R&R”. That is the position I come from. Therefore, there is no need to change the wording of the Bill. We should not be frightened of leaving the Bill as it is because we know that the sponsor body has its heart in the right place in a way that reflects exactly what noble Lords have been talking about this evening.

The restoration and renewal of the Palace should increase the number of visitors and see that visitors have an even better experience. I absolutely agree that R&R also provides the opportunity to re-engage the public in how democracy functions in the UK. The programme will develop better educational facilities, and it has been suggested that the additional chamber in Richmond House can be used to engage schoolchildren in our democratic process. That would be added value from the R&R process.

I just want to say something about building in a statutory duty to consult. I have talked about the need to avoid being over-prescriptive but, over and above that, the Government are concerned that placing a statutory duty on the sponsor body to consult the public, as prescribed in the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Bethell, is a particularly onerous requirement. Public engagement, as I have said, is essential for the works to succeed, but a duty to consult, I would strongly argue, would divert resource and time from the essential job at hand, which is to formulate proposals on the design, cost and timing of the works for parliamentary approval.

Let me turn briefly to Amendment 6, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, requiring the sponsor body to have regard to non-cashable benefits when assessing whether the programme delivers value for money. Clause 2(4) (b) to (h) contains a wide range of non-monetary benefits to which the sponsor body must have regard. They include safety and security, the environment, accessibility, educational facilities and the spread of opportunities to secure economic or other benefits across the UK. These benefits, which are, of course, important, have got to be balanced against the need to ensure that the works represent good value for money, as required under Clause 2(4)(a).

Value for money is core to the programme, and we consider that that has to remain explicit in the Bill. If we go on adding other non-monetary matters to Clause 2(4)(a), we run the distinct risk of watering down the explicit imperative of achieving value for money for the works, which is something that the Bill as drafted ensures the sponsor body must have regard to. Therefore, I think that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, would be detrimental to the Bill.

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[Baroness Byford]

My Lords, I want to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, because I have added my name to his second amendment. In the Joint Committee, we had long discussions about the whole question of access, particularly, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, has said, about access within the building once one gets in. I want to support the noble Lord in his desire to get something written on to the Bill with regard to disability. We had long discussions in Committee about this. It is a matter not just of people getting into this building but, once they are in the building, of how they get around it. The figure quoted in one of the briefings we had is that currently only about 12% of this building is accessible to people with a disability. As the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, has indicated, there will be rooms in this building that will not be accessible after renewal and I am sure that is probably right. I think it falls on the sponsor body itself to decide what is an acceptable percentage: if it is 12% now, are we talking about 25% or 30% eventually?

The other thing that we had a long conversation about was how people come into the building in the first place. The Cromwell Green entrance is totally inadequate for our needs now. It sometimes takes people an hour to get in, and if it is raining it is pretty miserable. Access to the building needs to be looked at as well.

I will not pre-empt the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, but it is not just those with physical disabilities who have difficulty accessing the building—those in wheelchairs or like the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, have difficulty in getting around. There are also people with hearing disabilities, but I will leave that issue to the noble Lord, Lord Stunell.

There are many ways in which this building could be made much more friendly and supportive of people so that we could use everyone’s skills that otherwise would not be included. I am very happy to have put my name to this amendment. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be more supportive of this one than of some of the others. When I broke my ankle last year, as I reflected at Second Reading, that made me realise the true difficulty of getting around this building; I think there are something like 90 different stairs, and many of the lifts are not accessible. If I can go further, some of the ladies’ and gentlemen’s facilities are totally inadequate for those with disabilities. This is an opportunity to put those basic needs right.

My questions for the shadow sponsor body are: where are your priorities going to come in this? In view of where you are going, what way can you see of achieving that while recognising that some of the building will not, I suspect, be suitable for getting the sort of access that most of us would like to see? I am hoping that my noble friend will be more encouraging later. I am very pleased to support these amendments.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I spoke about some of these issues in response to an earlier amendment. All I will say is that the amendment asks for a report for the building to be fully accessible, which I support, but to achieve that and the things that my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, have mentioned—including lifts, toilets and other areas that are currently inaccessible—will involve some massive works in this building and they will be very expensive. They will also reduce the amount of space available for other things, but I am sure that they have to happen.

My Amendment 17A proposes that the same criteria that my noble friend has put in Amendment 17 in respect of this building when we come back are also applied to the temporary accommodation that we might have in the QEII or wherever.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, to some extent my contribution has been prefigured, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Byford, for that. I strongly support everything that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, has said. I particularly want to pick out his phrase about making this an exemplar project.

In the many discussions that I have had over the years about making this place accessible to people with physical deficiencies, if you want to put it that way, or disabilities—I speak as someone who is not profoundly deaf but is quite deaf and certainly needs his hearing aids—all too often the attitude and the response have been grudging, a sort of reluctant admission that under the Disability Discrimination Act they have a duty to do it, but it is certainly not one undertaken with great joy.

I would have thought that this building—as we are a national Parliament and representatives of a democracy that in other aspects is trying to promote civilised values around the world, and here I am thinking of the work of our international development department, our Foreign Office, God bless them, and others, where we are constantly saying that we set an example—should surely set an example when it comes to access for those of limited mobility or with some other disability.

I want to put a word in for my noble friends Lady Brinton and Lady Thomas of Winchester, who, as noble Lords will know, make their way around this building in electric wheelchairs. This brings into focus the fact that our different priorities are in conflict. A whole lot of additional fire doors have been put in, which make it virtually impossible for those two noble Members to proceed around the building other than with an assistant to open and close the doors. Various arrangements have been put in place for the doors to be left open during sitting hours and so on, but for all sorts of reasons—some might say bureaucratic reasons—those commitments do not always work.

Each of my noble friends has personal stories about the problems they have had of being trapped behind those doors waiting for somebody to come and open them. There are challenges, but there are solutions. One can imagine that in 10 or 15 years’ time, it will be entirely feasible for every door and every electric wheelchair in this building to be fitted with a transponder, and for the doors to open when a wheelchair approaches. However, the idea of anybody thinking of or implementing that seems a very long way away.

As for deafness, I am inclined to say: do not get me started. Can we at least make sure that the new provision complies with existing law? This building does not comply with existing law and although people have wriggled and squiggled when they have talked to me about how they believe they have put in place various so-called first aid measures to make it okay, it all comes down to the person with the disability fitting into a system which, frankly, does not work or deliver. We certainly need to make sure we have standards that comply with existing legislation.

We need to consider what standards we as a legislature will impose upon employers and other public buildings when we get to 2035. Will our standards for them have risen? If so, can we make sure that we design our standards to do that as well? In fact, I would go further than that and say we ought to set outstanding standards and aim to be best in class for a public building in the United Kingdom—and why not best in class throughout the world? We need to see what that would mean and how we would make it work, rather than reluctantly dragging this along behind us and seeing what we can get away with.

This debate fits somewhere in between the debate we have already had on public engagement and the one we are going to have on future-proofing. I will just make the point that if you exclude or do not engage with people with disabilities, you are not doing the job that we set out to achieve in the first set of debates. I will not use all my ammunition on future-proofing at this point, but when we get to those amendments, it is worth remembering that not just the standards but the expectations of people in 20 years’ time will not be lower than they are now. If we are not achieving current standards now, simply doing things the same way in the revised, upgraded building will not do it.

I strongly support what the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said. He has much more experience than I do of both being a guerrilla and sitting at the big desk taking the decisions. In so far as I can give him any support from either of those dimensions, I shall certainly do so.

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My hope is that if the sponsor body has a responsibility or duty to report on any delays and why they are taking place, it will help to focus minds and do some good. It will be able to show that this project has the priorities and makes the progress that I think we wish to see. I beg to move.

[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.

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[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.