Houses of Parliament: Co-location

Lord Desai Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Desai (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is bad enough to be the last speaker from the Back-Benches, but it is much worse to follow the noble Lord, Lord Butler, who normally lays down the law on most things and we have to follow what he says. I first thank the noble Lord, Lord Norton, who has given a very clear and convincing case for why both Houses of Parliament should be in the same place.

Since most things have been said, I will make my remarks in three sections. First, we in Parliament have made a mess of the problem of moving and restoring Parliament. I have never been fond of crowded parliamentary Chambers. I do not know why we, as one of the oldest Parliaments in the business, tolerate crowded Parliaments with no room to move around. When you go to the Scottish Parliament or the European Parliament, you see how parliamentarians should be treated, whereas we treat our parliamentarians as deserving to be in overcrowded rooms.

Rather than restoring Westminster, we should basically move out and have another parliamentary building. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, wants this place alone to be Parliament, but I have seen better parliamentary buildings. At least in those I could have the same comfortable seat every day and a desk, et cetera —but we do not believe in that.

Restoration has not been a great success. I remember speaking in a debate in 2018, during which the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, recalled that he had raised this question in the Commons in 2007, so we were already 11 years behind. Of course, in 2018 we were told that moving out by 2025 was urgent because of all sorts of dangers—but it cannot be urgent if you are going to move out in 2025. We did not take seriously the problems involved in repairing the Palace of Westminster, and we are still not. Obviously, the House of Commons does not want to move out, so we are caught in a dilemma.

This has made the issue of where to put Parliament a public football. I remember York being mentioned, as of course Stoke-on-Trent now is. This leads to the question of separating the Parliaments. Michael Gove, who has been much mentioned, is obviously a very clever man. He proposed Stoke-on-Trent, perhaps not knowing that the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, lives there; if you go to his town, he will probably get the by-elections Bill passed.

However, the problem is clearly that, of all of the Parliaments in my 31 years here, this one and this Government like the House of Lords the least. There is a serious air of antagonism, with the House of Lords being a troublesome obstacle to a Government who have one of the highest ruling-party majorities. They have strong feelings about how to reshape our constitution and how to change this country into global Britain or whatever. Also, we have had three Conservative Prime Ministers in just the last six years. So things are troublesome over there, and I think that they want one obstacle—the House of Lords—to be removed.

As many Members have said, we discuss legislation in greater detail than the Commons do, and we reject or amend many of their clauses, giving them hard work to do to reject our changes. Therefore, they would rather we were somewhere else, to make their lives simpler. Of course, I quite agree that that is not feasible, but from early on we should have tried to find another location or build one anew. We have had a lot of time. I wrote to someone on the committee just before the pandemic to say that we should start building a new construction for both Parliaments right away, so that we would be able to move in—but that did not happen.

So here we are, strongly disliked by the other place, and we have to firmly say, “We shall not be moved”. I remember the old civil rights song that I used to sing, “We Shall Not Be Moved”. But I point out one thing to the noble Lord, Lord Norton, who said that the Houses of Parliament should

“continue to be co-located in the same city”.

Yes, of course they should be in the same city—but he has not said what country. There is a secret plan, which the right reverend Prelate saw through, and it is Kigali. As a devoted Daily Mail reader, I know Kigali is a wonderful place, and the hotels are absolutely marvellous, so if we were transported there, we would be envied by everybody. Of course, Rwanda is a very nice place, and part of the Commonwealth. The prospect is that we should all go to Kigali. Would not that be fun?