Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased and privileged to follow the former Leader of the House and to endorse her congratulations on the enormous amount of work that has taken place to get us to this point. I will not go down the road that she started on in relation to organs outside the body, but it is clear to all of us that the substantive Motion is the only one that will deal with the challenge ahead of us. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, talked about the disruption about which we are all extremely aware and—many of us—very apprehensive. If there was ever an example of why the Burns committee should be embraced by Downing Street it is restoration and renewal. Maintaining the balance in this House will require the kinds of recommendations that the Burns committee came up with in terms of the way in which people will perceive their future.

I am pleased that the Motion before us recognises the importance of accessibility for visitors with disabilities and special needs, although that is also true of those working in the Palace of Westminster and will be in the future, and of the important role of the Education Service, which is close to my heart. I hope that both the sponsor board and the delivery authority will also take account of the fact that this will be a very major infrastructure programme, using very large amounts of public money, and that it will be really important to reach out across the country so that the economic benefit that comes from that investment can be shared by the nations and regions of Britain as a whole and not just by the overheating that will undoubtedly take place in London and the south-east as this project competes for skilled labour with other major infrastructure programmes taking place over the next 15 years. Talking to people involved in those projects last week, it became very clear that we will need a skills development plan and a profiling of those projects if we are to avoid London and the south of the country benefiting enormously while the north and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland feel little economic benefit.

Yes, of course this is a heritage site of enormous importance—iconic, as the Leader of the House said more than once—but it is also a symbol of our democracy and there is something reflective in the state of the plumbing and the wiring and the mechanics below us of the dangers that we face in not renewing our democracy at the same time as we renew the fabric and restore the workings of the Palace of Westminster. I want to make just two very quick points on that matter.

First, this might appear to be a tangential point but it is about the staff working in this building, particularly the lowest paid and those in insecure jobs, many of which will not be available while the decant takes place. I hope we will plan for their future and take care of their well-being as well as the physical conditions around us. The Times article at the beginning of January, which mocked what it described as the “subsidy” for issues such as catering, missed the point entirely. The subsidy was not for our food or drink; it was for the well-being of staff who would otherwise have unacceptable contracts, particularly when the House was in recess. The same will apply in the difficult years ahead of us with the decant.

My second point concerns the design for democracy itself. Yes, of course we are concerned about the physical fabric and the deterioration but, as Professor Matt Flinders and many others have illustrated, designing for the modern era a Parliament which will not be just a symbol of our democracy but a living, breathing organ of it will be really important if we are to reach out using new technology, using the skills that exist in this House among our staff in terms of the outreach to the regions and nations of Britain, setting up outreach centres across the country that will link into a newly equipped, modern facility here in the Palace of Westminster, so that engagement with the public and an encouragement of participation will be considered as important as getting the heating and the ventilation right. Renewing the fabric must be seen alongside renewing the fabric of and restoring confidence in our democracy. If the sponsor board and the delivery authority can take these matters on board, we have an opportunity to link physical renewal with democratic renewal, and I hope we will do that.