Restoration and Renewal of the Palace of Westminster

Mark Tami Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Many of us, and I hope all of us, love this place. I share that love, obviously, with the Leader of the House—this place, its history, its architecture and what it means to be working in the home of our democracy, one of our greatest traditions and most successful exports. Today, we get our first chance to debate the restoration and renewal of the Palace since a major review recommended that the full decant—moving everybody off the estate for a short period—is required. We will debate whether that is short or long enough, but it is indeed required—for cost as well as for safety and effectiveness.

As the right hon. Gentleman said, this is a place of work, but it is a place of work in which we are the custodians of a world heritage site, a world heritage site that has seeping sewage, asbestos, and pipes and wires going who knows where, doing who knows what, and where there is flood and fire risk. That needs fixing urgently, and we can no longer rely on luck. The public care deeply about this place. The right hon. Gentleman is right to mention our accountability to the taxpayers; they want us to spend the money wisely, and they deserve to have this monument to democracy preserved as a place of business in a way that they may continue to be part of, scrutinising our proceedings in this place safely and accessibly.

The House of Commons Commission, before I became a member of it, asked the sponsor body to investigate works for “a continued presence” on the estate. However, the review has already recommended that the best and most cost-effective thing is to continue with a full decant. We cannot carry on like this, endlessly going backwards and forwards, with debates and reviews, endlessly revisiting decisions that have been taken. I declare right now, if it is not already obvious, that I am firmly in the camp that many MPs, staff, trade unions and specialists are in, which is the “let’s get on with it” camp.

I know what it is like—I understand right hon. and hon. Members who worry about missing this place. I know what it is like to miss it and, like all of us, at some point to wonder whether we will even return to it after an election. We all come to this place knowing that we could leave at short notice, and we all want to make the most of it while we are here. Only those with a heart of stone could fail to be moved by the magnificence of Westminster Hall—a millennium of history, a cathedral to democratic representation and civic engagement, from the throwing of ordure in the civil war to, yes, the gift shop and caff. There is, too, the wonderful art of the “New Dawn” stained glass, celebrating women’s suffrage. I get that people are in love with this building—I am, too.

I will never forget my first experience of this Palace, as a young campaigner wanting to change the law on domestic violence, sitting right up there in the visitors’ Gallery till the early hours of the morning, watching the debate on a law that I had helped to shape and hearing a Labour Front Bencher—from this Dispatch Box—propose amendments that I had campaigned and provided the evidence for. I felt in awe of what happens when democratically elected representatives—not just the campaigners—are convinced of an argument sufficiently to change the law of the land in ways that benefit millions of people.

After being taken for tea in what I now realise must have been the cafeteria, the late noble Lord Russell, with whom we had been working, took my colleague and me back through the Palace to his car to give us a lift to the station. As we turned a corner, I heard what I still swear was Shirley Bassey singing. I cannot prove that but, if any hon. Members were here in 1996, on Third Reading of the Family Law Act 1996, I will be grateful if they could not disabuse me of that special memory and tell me that, actually, it was they who were singing “Goldfinger” at 3 o’clock in the morning. My heart stopped as I saw for the first time the Gothic temple that is Central Lobby and heard that voice.

I never tire of skipping up the majestic staircase from Members’ Cloakroom to Members’ Lobby, thinking of Members in times past who had to do their casework on their briefcases at one of the side seats. The Library is where I have done some of my best work for my constituents, researching their problems, finding solutions and, of course, gazing at the river outside. Make the most of it. Enjoy the Library, make friends with the Members’ staircase and marvel at Westminster Hall, but please do not let us be selfish and mess this up by blocking what is needed to preserve this place as a place of democracy, either by insisting on keeping a presence—thereby introducing delays, further expense and possible risks to safety—or by endlessly delaying it. The work need doing, and doing urgently, if we are to hand over this place and its history to the next generation.

When surveyed, the British people say that they want us to look after Westminster. They support restoration and renewal. Yes, it is a tourist site. The Leader of the House is correct to say that that is not its only significance, but it matters to people so much that they care about it, even if they do not visit. We are its custodians, but the taxpayer, the British people, and their children and grand- children to come, own it. It is theirs. The right hon. Gentleman talks about Members needing to know the price tag, and I completely agree. On behalf our constituents, we have to know that price tag, but we must also know the price of not doing certain works, and of not doing them in a timely manner. In my experience, the price of such things does not tend to go down by delay, and we must understand those counterfactuals.

I understand from the Sponsor Body that we will have clearer information by September and October, but we can already assess some of that from the assessments made so far, and from the evidence of our own eyes, ears and noses. There is leaking sewage. Who here in the summer of 2019 could forget that delicate scent, as they walked down the corridor to the Library? There are wires and plumbing that nobody knows the function of. There is asbestos, flooding, fires—please let us not say, “Well, we’ve managed to avoid disaster so far.” We have been a whisker away too many times, and eventually our luck will run out.

As hon. Members may—or may not—know, in 2016 the Joint Committee recommended a full decant as the safest, quickest, and most cost-effective way of fixing all that. Yes, we have learned a lot in the past year, including that we can be swift enough at moving to different arrangements, and then moving back. In 2018, that decant was endorsed in the Joint Committee’s full report, which also made the case for the Sponsor Body to act as client on our behalf—quite right too; politicians interfering as clients can be incredibly unhelpful—and the Delivery Authority to carry out the work.

Also in 2018, this House rejected the options of a rolling programme or partial decant. We voted for that. We made our views known, and in 2019 we voted for the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Act 2019. That Act established the Sponsor Body and Delivery Authority, which came into existence last year. The Sponsor Body was asked to review the full decant, and consider the potential for continued presence in this House throughout the works. It published its recommendations recently, and it strongly recommended that we continue with a full decant on the grounds of value for money, safety, and speed.

If we attempt to maintain a continued presence in this building while building works go on around us, I invite all hon. Members to consider what that would be like. Will the right hon. Gentleman really tell the builders to keep the noise down? If he were to get builders into his own home, and commission them to work on every single part of it, sorting out sewers, wiring, lighting, and removing dangerous materials, would he tell them that he also wants to continue living in the middle of it? What contractor would take on that job?

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that experience suggests that what people say they are prepared to put up with and what they will actually put up with are two very different things?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Yes, I could not put it better myself. It would be interesting to know whether the Leader of the House intends to come in here in a high-vis jacket and a hard hat. Will he expect his staff to do the same? He said that we need to maintain our work without being unduly hindered, but we would be hindered on a building site.

Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day—surely a day to take stock and to reflect on what that means for restoration and renewal. If any hon. Members have accompanied a constituent in a wheelchair around this place, they will have experienced, as I have, the acute, painful embarrassment of realising that the democracy we prize is on show for them only via a very awkward, pre-booked route, if that.

If Members have been here with partially sighted constituents, they may have noticed poor lighting and hidden hazards around the building. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for recognising my commitment to autism awareness, which is at least in part inspired by our much missed colleague, Cheryl Gillan—surely no Member here has not been on her training course—and any Member aware of that issue will know what a challenge this place is for many autistic people, and that making it good for autistic people, and for those with disabilities, makes it better for us all.

Disabled people make up 10% of the population—our voters. They have a right to be here. They have a right to scrutinise us. They have a right to be unimpeded witnesses to democracy. Are we really saying that they should not have that?

Our staff and the thousands of other staff who work on the parliamentary estate are dedicated public servants. They are patriots; they love this country and the democratic institution of Parliament. They come to this place each day to serve it and the people of this country. They deserve our gratitude, and like so many public servants, they deserve a pay rise, especially those who kept coming into the building throughout the pandemic, although that is not the subject of the debate. They surely deserve safe working conditions.

A full decant will ensure that staff have the safest possible conditions in which to work while the works are done and when they are over. Remaining on the estate will mean that those who are required to be here—although that may be a smaller group than once thought, some will be—will not have safe working conditions while that work is going on. It will put them in an intolerable position. It will mean delays. It will mean risks. It will mean that those staff required to be on the estate will have to tolerate all of that.

Many of those staff will outlast many of us, but they will not have had a say or a vote. They may have been consulted, but that is not the same as what we have. We have decision-making powers that we need to take seriously on behalf of our staff, parliamentary staff and our constituents. We have had our say, we have taken a vote and we need to honour that commitment. I invite the right hon. Gentleman to imagine himself saying to the Doorkeepers, cleaners and Clerks that some of them will be required to work on a building site, which will remain a fire risk and where asbestos is being removed. I wonder if he will ask his own staff to do that.

Please let us get on with this. The right hon. Gentleman mentions the value of quiet words with Ministers in corridors. He must know that other corridors exist. Ears of Ministers can be bent in corridors far and wide. Some of us may not be MPs by the time the work is done—if we get a move on, some of us might be—but it is not about us. It is about the British people, their love of democracy and the rule of law and their right of safe access to bear witness to the lawmaking done in their name. It is about making sure that our staff and the entire parliamentary staff have a safe place to work as soon as possible, without working in risky situations in between. It is about the public of the future. If we mess this up and it ends up costing us more through delay and removing essential parts of the works, they will rightly blame us for putting off what should not have been put off, for fudging what should have been done with clarity and for failing to avert a disaster that could and should have been avoided.

For goodness’ sake, let us heed the assessments of the experts, let us allow the Sponsor Body to get on with creating the detailed plans for the outline business case and costing, and let us commission the Delivery Authority as soon as we have those agreed plans. Politicians do not make good project managers for things like this. That is why we voted for the Sponsor Body. We interfere beyond our skills, we change our minds, we have to think about elections. We are not the experts; we are the custodians, and now that we have been given the information, we need to get a move on. Those who come after us will not thank us if we duck it, but they may just recognise that we were the parliamentary generation that put first the British public and our love of history and democracy and got this done.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Let me start by saying that I agree totally with the words of the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who is very knowledgeable on this subject. I recommend that Members watch her presentation to the Institute for Government, which was also very good.

I remind the House that it is nearly three and a half years since we voted in favour of a full decant and the establishment of the Sponsor Body and the Delivery Authority—which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) said, was enacted in 2019—and nearly five years since the Joint Committee produced its report. I have the pleasure, or some may say the misfortune, of serving on all these bodies, including the current Sponsor Body board. There is great enthusiasm on the board for this project, and work is under way to produce a business case for the required work with the intention of putting it to the House in 2023. Personally, I would like that to happen sooner, but I accept that we have to produce a robust business case and then we need to make our minds up in this House.

Doing nothing, patching up and making do, and pretending it is all fine are not viable options. Carrying on as we are, as if this is somehow a no-cost option, is just ridiculous. We are spending millions of pounds every year on work much of which will probably have to be ripped out and done again as part of the overall project. The Leader of the House is a decent chap but he does not like or accept the decision of this House to decant completely. He believes that we should stay put, even though every estimate that I have seen says that that is the most expensive and time-consuming option that we could choose. I accept that it is an honest view and he believes that that is the best thing for us, but where I would part company with him is in the practice of persistently kicking the can down the road.

The Leader of the House wanted a review of the decision, and that has happened. I hope that he and others will accept that the review broadly went along with the established position and recommended a full decant. It did accept that there are ways in which we could minimise the amount of time that Members are absent from the estate. Of course it is technically possible that we could stay on site, but, as other Members have made very clear, that would probably cost billions more and take 30 years to complete. Not content with these delays, the can has received another good kick and we are to have further work undertaken to find whether we can have some form of presence on the estate. We can go on and on like this, but all it does is to incur more delay and more cost.



Why do we want to stay here? Do we honestly believe that if we move out the world is going to fall apart? Do we believe that this is part of some terrible plot and that if we leave we will not be allowed back in? I have heard all those stories, but they are just not true. As other hon. Members have said, this is not just about us. It is not just about the 650 MPs or the 800-odd Lords; it is about the thousands of staff—the Clerks, Doorkeepers, caterers, cleaners and on and on—who make this place actually function, because, without them, this place would not function. We are the minority, and this should not be just about what is convenient for us; it should be about meeting the requirements, and most importantly ensuring the safety, of everybody.

R and R is not a vanity project, as some would have us believe. It is not a blank cheque to spend public money on luxury surroundings. It is about saving and restoring this great building and, importantly, creating a safe and secure environment for everyone to work in. Of course we have to deliver value for money for the taxpayer, but, equally, we have to deliver a building that can offer much greater access for all and that is actually fit for purpose.

I firmly believe that Richmond House should be the preferred option for a decant for the Commons. However, while knocking most of it down and rebuilding it may offer the best outcome in terms of a useful building, I acknowledge that that is probably not going to happen, and we will have to work within what we have now. That is not the end of the world—far from it. As the Leader of the House said, we have seen during the pandemic that we can do things differently. I am not the biggest fan of electronic voting, but we have managed to make it work. Virtual participation means that the amount of space we will need can be reduced. At the time of the Joint Committee, the Leader of the House was very concerned that we would not get two Division Lobbies, but we could probably live without that.

As the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire said, R and R will be a great opportunity for the country as a whole. The Prime Minister is always going on about shovel-ready projects, and this surely meets that criteria. However, the Leader of the House wants to rip the shovel from the hands of the Prime Minister and throw it in the Thames.

Although R and R is a project in London, it should not be a London-centric project. The Sponsor Body has made very clear its determination that businesses from around the UK should have the opportunity to bid for work. We cannot and must not allow some big company just to dish out the work to its usual mates, as we have seen with many big contracts in the past. We then find that all the steel has come not from the UK but from China. We cannot make those mistakes again. To achieve that, we have to ensure that the tender process, while fit for purpose, does not deter smaller companies because of its cost and its length.

Central to the project must be the establishment of a substantial apprenticeship scheme, hopefully taking on at least 160 or more people from around the UK, creating the next generation of heritage experts. I hope Members will embrace that and encourage businesses and individuals from their areas to play their part in what will be an exciting project.

In the coming months, R and R will be reaching out to Members and Members’ staff and administration staff to help explain and build that business case. I hope colleagues will take part in that and help the process. There are those who will always say that this is not the right time to restore this place—“Let’s just keep putting it off and make it the next generation’s problem.” That has been the approach for 80 years; for 80 years we have been putting it off, patching and making do—"Don’t worry about it. This'll get us through the next 10 years.” We knew the problems then and we know the problems now, and they have just got worse. If we persist in kicking that dreadful can down the road, we will face not only mounting costs, but the real prospect of a catastrophic fire or other significant failure. That would put not only this building at risk, but the lives of the people who work in it. I believe that it must be in everybody’s interests that we just get on with the job and stop putting obstacles in the way. Let us restore this place and create a Parliament fit for the 21st century.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is extremely helpful because, as I said, I have to work with what we have at the moment, and from what the spokesperson for the Sponsor Body now says, we seem to have moved on from the demolition of Richmond House. This will be of enormous comfort to the heritage organisations such as SAVE, with which I have been working very closely. If we are looking at a grade II* listed building, even the lowest level of listing is defined as

“warranting every effort to preserve”

these buildings—that is according to Historic England—and Richmond House is above that. It was, of course, one of the most important public buildings created in the 1980s.

I can cut short my speech, because I appear to be on a bit of a winning streak. I do not really need to quote all the various points that have been made by numerous distinguished architects and historic buildings organisations in favour of Richmond House, which was put up only 30 years ago. Of course, demolishing it would be environmentally unsound.

[Mark Tami]

I do not want to upset the right hon. Member, but my preferred option would be to knock the building down, apart from the façade, and to create something that would have a useful legacy. The reality is that I do not think that will happen, so we have to work within the given footprint. That would probably mean that we had only one Division Lobby rather than two, which would not be the end of the world.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

It is so wonderful to all come together and find a way forward. I can provide a way forward, because I have been working with SAVE on the matter. This is called the Mark Hines proposal, and it is from a professional architect. SAVE commissioned Mark Hines Architects to look into preserving Richmond House. He found that a replica Commons Chamber would fit into the Richmond House courtyard. His proposal includes a full Chamber of the same size and layout as at present, Division Lobbies, public and press seating at gallery level—somewhat reduced, understandably —and handicapped access. It would fulfil the full security needs, having a separate public entrance with security clearing area and a blast-proof structure. A private security firm has assessed the plan and said that it meets security requirements.

Architectural plans prove that this is possible. The building could be prefabricated off site and installed using cranes within a matter of months, and independent security consultants confirm that it is as safe as existing proposals. It is professionally costed at £46 million, in contrast to reports in the architectural press that the current plan would cost £1.6 billion. To reassure my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), the former Leader of the House, if the House of Commons insists that we decant and create an alternative Chamber, I proffer that solution. It would save a listed building and provide a perfectly adequate alternative.

I must say that there is an even cheaper proposal, and I hope the House will forgive me if I share it. That is the Anthony Delarue proposal—again, he is a professional architect—which I commissioned. He accepts that a top-to-bottom renovation makes sense, because, as we have heard, the systems need a total revamp. He proposes that we move temporarily to the House of Lords Chamber, as we did in the second world war, and that the House of Lords move to the Royal Gallery. He suggests—this is a professional architect, not me—that these areas could be sectioned off with complete external servicing, with linear access to Portcullis House via New Palace Yard, and with temporary canteens, lavatories and so on accommodated in Old Palace Yard, Victoria Tower Gardens or Abingdon Street Gardens.

That proposal has all the advantages of a full decant. Every electrical socket, bit of wiring, air duct and climate control system can be pulled out and comprehensively done in one go. It solves the most expensive problem—the provision of temporary accommodation—by housing two plenary Chambers within the existing Palace. Richmond House will not be just preserved but integrated into the estate, to house workers displaced from the Palace. The proposal eliminates the lengthy timeframe of potential public inquiries into the demolishing of a listed building. Of course, it retains the QEII conference centre, with all the financial advantages to the Treasury of retaining its income from the centre. That is the proposal. I put it forward as probably the very cheapest option, rather akin to what we did in the second world war. If the House insists on a full decant into Richmond House, however, I proffer the courtyard idea.

None of these plans is set in stone. We can be clever, and we can pick and choose. Surely, time has moved on. As has been said again and again in this debate, we have proved that we can work virtually. I am with the Leader of the House; I do not like virtual working, but it can greatly shorten the time for which we have to be away from this Chamber. There are other proposals I have put which are even cheaper. We know—I know we cannot say much about it—that there is already an emergency alternative pop-up Chamber stored somewhere. If we had to move away for a few months or a year, we could use the atrium of Portcullis House. I met the architect of Portcullis House. He actually designed it so a Chamber could go in the atrium. A Chamber with Division Lobbies could fit exactly in that space. Not ideal, but surely we have proved during this pandemic that we do not have to move out of this place for ever. I was very interested in what the Leader of the House said, and I think what the Chairman of the Committee said, if I remember rightly, that while we would want to move out all the Committees from here, we could actually seal off the Chamber and have access through the corridor past the Prime Minister’s office.

I want to emphasise that this is not a debate between decant and not decant. I am perfectly happy, and all those colleagues on the Back Benches I have been working with are perfectly happy, if we have to decant for a few months, eight months, nine months, a year. What we do not want—I will finish on this point, Madam Deputy Speaker—is a gold-plating operation. We do not want Richmond House demolished. We do not want a permanent replica Chamber created at vast cost. We do not want to surrender our fate to an army of consultants and architects to leave this place and be out of it for five or 10 years. Look at the Canadian example: we could be out of this place for up to 10 years. I do not believe that that is what the public really want. This is a citadel of our democracy. For many people in the world, this democracy is about this building. By all means, let us come together and get on with it, but let us have a short decant, not a long, highly wasteful decant of up to 10 years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Tami]

I thank my hon. Friend for the very kind words she said about me earlier. On the point she is making, I am sure the Leader of the House agrees, because he was also on the Joint Committee, and we spent months—probably more than a year—looking at every one of the options, including using the House of Lords. On the surface it seems quite a sensible case of just moving down there, but as my hon. Friend rightly says this is one building and one set of services. It would be incredibly expensive and difficult to try to create new services, and we would still be working in a building site, so it just would not work.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that detailed and informed view.

It is also worth reminding Members—and I say this respectfully to newer Members—of the awful day when we were locked in here because of the terrible murder of PC Keith Palmer. That cannot have failed to have alerted everybody in this place to security risks that we all would really rather we did not have. We have to remain within a secure perimeter, and I want to take seriously the advice that we have had from security specialists who say that staying within the northern estate is vital if we are to maintain security. Again, I have to say that it is not about us; it is about our staff and the public.

I have heard mention of Portcullis House; I walked across Portcullis House atrium yesterday and counted not one, not two, but three buckets collecting water from a leaky roof, so we are going to have to do some work if we think we are going to decant into Portcullis House. That is also a cautionary tale of what happens when we do not keep up with the maintenance.

I say to all right hon. and hon. Members, whether new or long-standing, that if they have not—as I have not yet, but I am booked to—taken the tour of horror, which I am told is really quite the horrifying tour, please will they do so? I think it will help those who have said that they do not how to explain it to their constituents. I completely get that, because to begin with I was not sure how, but once I had seen some of the pictures and heard some of the tales—I am about to go and see for myself—I finally understood how to talk to my constituents, because my constituents own this place, as do the constituents of other Members. That is why we need to stop the delays, recognise that the costs of delay are high and realise that a partial decant is in and of itself both a delay and a cost.

We need to recognise that the specialness of this place is worth preserving. This place is worth modernising and enhancing. Debate itself can take place anywhere that there are two politicians of different parties in a room—and even more so if they are of the same party. That debate can take place anywhere, and we now know that we can also vote in really quite constrained circumstances. It is not ideal, but it will do us until we can get back in here, fully modernised and fully safe.