Restoration and Renewal Programme Board

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I wonder whether I could just ask my noble friend a question. He very kindly answered a Written Question from me quite recently, which indicated that the cost spent on restoration and renewal in the last two years is over £200 million, and the cost in respect of this coming year is anticipated at a further £85 million. That is £300 million being spent largely on design and corporate costs and other matters. It does seem to be an excessive amount, so can he assure me that this new body will have the necessary expertise and resources to ensure that money is spent wisely and carefully?

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, further to the matters raised by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, I often get asked by people outside this House, “When did you agree to that?” It was agreed by the House of Lords and was passed, I am told—but I cannot remember it because we do it on the nod. We do too much on the nod in this House, and this is one example. Again and again we have been looking at this.

Going back over 10 years, we had the pre-feasibility study; we discussed it and set up a whole structure. That structure has been continuing and—as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said—we have spent hundreds of millions of pounds already, and nothing has happened. If we had agreed what some of us were suggesting—that we should build a new, purpose-built building away from here that would satisfy all our needs, have offices for every Member and for staff, have facilities for the disabled, who have great difficulty getting around this awful building, and provide proper services, that could have been built now, for a few hundred million pounds—well, a few billion. Then we could have sold off all the buildings around here—Portcullis House and all the others.

We could have moved out of this building, so that it could be restored slowly, securely and made into a good museum—a museum of democracy. Big Ben and the Elizabeth Tower would still be there. As was suggested at the time, we could recreate great events in history in the other Chamber and here. We could have used this whole building in another way. But we did not do that and we are now going into yet another phase which will cost more hundreds of millions of pounds. We are already going to spend £7 million just on the front door.

[A noble Lord]

£9 million.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

£9 million is it now? You see, it has gone up £2 million since yesterday. We have been putting up scaffolding all around the place, spending millions and millions of pounds, but this building will never be satisfactory. It will never be good for people to get around and do a proper job.

I mean no disrespect to those who have been suggested as members. They are excellent. They are all younger than me, particularly my noble friend Lord Collins. Of course, the Clerk of the Parliaments is the youngest of all; he is the baby of the lot. The other two are only in their 70s. Will they still be around when we even get to the next stage of this hilarious—no, not hilarious: awful—exercise that we are undergoing at the moment? At some point, is someone going to say that this is all going in the wrong direction and we should not be doing it? In the 21st century, a modern and dynamic country, as the United Kingdom purports to be, ought to have a modern, dynamic parliament building and make this into a museum, which it could be appropriately.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I am not looking to join the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, in his garden shed across the way, but there is a very real issue of accountability. We are already talking about millions and millions of pounds. Nobody is quite clear how this has happened. I am delighted that we have a new commission. Who is making the decisions and when will they be made accountable to Parliament for this huge spending of public money that a lot of us disagree with?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

May I just ask the Senior Deputy Speaker to bear in mind that it is not just people from around the world who admire this building and see it and its purpose as iconic? I have taken dozens and dozens of groups round this building over the years and not a single person has said to me, “I wish this was made of glass and concrete and stuck somewhere outside the capital”. I do not know whether anyone else has come across someone who said that—maybe my noble friend Lord Foulkes, but no one else.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My noble friend and I are noble friends. It does not need to be glass and concrete. Other countries, such as Australia and Brazil, have done it, and they are some really good buildings. In the United States, the Capitol is a really effective building, because Senators have offices where we do not. I do not understand why we cannot keep this as a building for all sorts of other purposes but have a proper place to carry out the work of a proper legislature. I will introduce my noble friend to many people who think the same—my noble friend Lord Maxton is one of them, by the way.

[Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)]

Many years ago I was brought in to give a view on this, because I had been involved in major projects, and I agree totally with the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. I have never come across something of this size where the number of committees involved is just extraordinary but where nobody has any real authority. Most of all, the management structure—who actually runs it and gets it going in its format—does not have people from my background with the experience to be able to do it.