Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body (Abolition) Regulations 2022

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2022 Grand Committee

The final issue that the new process must deal adequately with, and which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and my noble friend Lady Doocey, is accountability. The SI talks about an annual report. I think it fair to say that the team coming across from the sponsor body has a significant comms component and a comprehensive series of plans for consulting Members. I agree that this is essential, but it cannot be a block. We must make progress, because this lack of action is costing hundreds of millions of pounds and threatening the entire physical integrity of the building. This is the last best chance to sort it out.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I agree with all the comments so far, but I repeat the words of my noble friend Lady Smith when we debated the report the SI has come out of, to end the previous structure. She emphasised that this

“is not our building. It belongs to the nation as the home of Parliament, and we have a responsibility as custodians of this building for future generations.”—[Official Report, 13/7/22; col. 1542.]

It is not about what we want but about protecting something that has been the symbol of democracy for hundreds of years. That is my starting point.

Whenever I hear the phrase “we want to avoid political interference”, I know that it will lead to political interference, as opposed to what this project needs more than anything: political buy-in. How do we ensure that when decisions are made, those with the responsibility for funding will support it? There is no point having grand plans if, at the end of it, people say that it is not affordable. We must have political buy-in—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

The noble Lord said that it is not our building. Who, then, is the client? Who is responsible for deciding what happens if it is not the Members of this House and the other place? Who is the client?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

We clearly are. I am not saying that we are not. I was hoping to make the case that our responsibility is not limited simply to what we want for now. Our responsibility is to look to future generations as custodians of this place and not simply managers. Even more importantly, we talk about accountability, but I want to keep using the words “political buy-in”, because at every stage of this project we have to ensure that there is consensus and political buy-in. When we start making party-political points, we will fail.

When the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, was Chair of the Finance Committee and I was a member of it, we had regular discussions about this. There is perhaps a wider assumption in the world outside that this building needs restoration and that we are planning a restoration programme, but this building is like the Forth Road Bridge: we have not stopped restoring it. We have spent hundreds of millions of pounds a year to restore the fabric of this building. The problem, as we all know, is that when this building was built by the Victorians it was full of shortcuts and making do. Since then, we too have been making shortcuts and making do, which has added to the problem. A lot of the difficulties we face are from periods when we have made this innovation here and developed something else there. The mechanical and engineering problems we face downstairs did not start with the Victorians; they have been going on since the place was built. How do we address that?

I agree that we can all be frustrated by decisions being made without proper consultation. When I was on the Finance Committee, what I found most frustrating was trying to pin down the people making the decisions and make them responsible for those decisions. We do not make them accountable by taking responsibility away from them; we have to do the opposite. Making them responsible and accountable means that we, as the custodians, should set clear objectives and policies, so that when they are managing the programme, we can ask whether they have met those objectives and whether they have been successful. Those objectives may be cost objectives or other objectives.

The Clerk of the Parliaments has heard me say many times that I want to ensure that he can measure his activity against the clear policies we set. The arguments against decanting are about the big costs and that, in decanting, we are being too extravagant. Actually, one can make the case that decanting could save money. The QEII Centre was built some time ago and its own mechanics and electrics are in desperate need of renewal. That has been postponed, because we may move in and help it to do the work, so the process that we immediately think could cost a lot of money could save the public and the taxpayer a substantial amount of money. The issue is how we define those objectives and look at what we are doing as a whole.

One other thing that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said was absolutely right. When we look at R&R, we must integrate properly what we are doing now in restoring this building. When I was on the Finance Committee, I thought, “Do we delay that to fit it in with R&R? Do we move forward on it? Is it taken into account in R&R?” All these issues have not been properly addressed.

We all have a responsibility—in particular, for the new governance structure, which I support. I should declare an interest, because I am going to be a member of the programme board; hopefully, I will be able to keep expressing the opinions I am expressing today. I will not be saying, “Tell me to make this decision”. I will be saying, “I want you to make the decision, but based on the clear policy objectives set by both the programme board and the two commissions”. That is what I hope to see but I am not fixed, by the way. If someone can persuade me that not decanting fully could work, I will go with it, but I like the idea that setting clear objectives, budgeting properly for them and having proper buy-in is a better way of doing this.

I support the regulations. We have made the decision anyway; we have already had a debate. I think that we will make this project more transparent with more accountability. I support that.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all those who have spoken in this debate. I must say, as a fairly recent tenant of the office of Leader of the House of Lords—it is a tenancy—I am finding it interesting trying to find out why and where things happen. Having experienced the horror of a powerful earthquake, as I have in my life, I sometimes feel like the little boy trying to find the butterfly that flapped its wings to cause all these things to happen in the first place.

However, we are where we are. As all those who have spoken in the debate have said, this is an extraordinarily important building. It is a palace of the people. As Leader of your Lordships’ House, I submit that its most fundamental importance is that it provides a place, and should provide an environment, in which Members of Parliament can carry out their fundamental democratic duties to hold Governments to account, consider legislation and discuss both between themselves and across the two Houses how things should be accomplished in the best place and in the best way. However we take this project forward—having listened to this debate, I know that an enormous amount of expertise and thought has been and will be given to this, and I pay tribute to the members of the sponsor body—we must never forget that this is a House of Parliament, and one that cannot simply say, “We can send these people away”.

I note what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Best, whose work on this and contribution to our House have been outstanding. We cannot avoid interference in a House of Parliament, as it was put by parliamentarians. That is why we are here: to make judgments and choose priorities. It may well be true that talk of a decant—the noble Lord was right in what he said on this—did cause some people to be troubled by what was proposed. But I assure your Lordships that the commissions have asked for a wider range of options to decant as we go forward, with Members and staff from areas of the building affected by the works being considered. The House will have future opportunities to take decisions, and it will be informed by full analysis and wide consultation and engagement. As someone said—perhaps it was my noble friend Lord Forsyth—it is important that Members feel engaged and informed as we go forward. The word “transparency” was also used by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey.