Lord Fuller
Main Page: Lord Fuller (Conservative - Life peer)
Lord Fuller (Con)
I am grateful to the Senior Deputy Speaker for allowing me to slip into the gap. I was not planning to speak, but I do so after the challenge from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who wondered what the new Members—and, dare I say, some of the younger Members—felt. Being one of the new and one of the younger Members, I will just say that I have taken the opportunity to participate in the R&R tour of the dungeon, and I am glad that I did, because it was a real eye-opener. But I am surprised and disappointed that only 80 Members out of the 800 in our cohort have done so. There is a challenge there—how are we going to get that number up? Unless we get more than 10% going into the basement, we will never be able to have the evidence-based approach.
I have been very impressed by the work that has been done to repair the roof and other things too, but in business your first loss is often your best loss, and there is a nettle to be grasped here. When you go down to the basement, it is obvious that you cannot have half a steam pipe. It is like being pregnant. You cannot be half pregnant; you are either pregnant or you are not—not that I would know, but my wife tells me. Furthermore, the Cloister Court is clearly a wasted opportunity; it is something that we should be celebrating.
I take the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, that going forward the building should not just be as it is today. In the summer I went to the US Capitol and Congress. When you go into the committee rooms, there is positive air pressure; air is filtered and secured. They have places to sit and work in IT—and, guess what, it is warm in the winter. We should learn from that; it should not be just as it is today—we should be looking to improve matters. We cannot wish away some of the practical constraints, such as the raft foundation. If we are going to drill a tunnel to have better facilities and better steam, you cannot have half a tunnel—you have to do it all.
In essence, I am very attracted to the idea of a full decant. When you examine the evidence, you can see that it is unarguable that it is the best way—quicker, cheaper and more certain, and the faster we start, the quicker we will get back. As one of the younger Members, I am quite interested in coming back when it is done, in my lifetime, rather than it taking a very long period of time that will see us all out.