Business of the House

Mark Tami Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s approval of our decision to keep the overseas aid Committee going. She and the Chairman of the Committee made a compelling case in meetings with me and with others.

As regards the hospitality sector, the Government absolutely appreciate the enormous sacrifices that businesses and the hospitality sector have made to ensure that their premises are covid-secure. The decision to place restrictions on them has not been taken lightly, but for the clear need to suppress the coronavirus. It is right that the Government should support the sector how it can. The rent is being covered by cash grants worth up to £3,000 for each month a business is forced to close. We estimate that this will cover rent for around 90% of small and medium retail, hospitality and leisure properties in England. Pay is being covered by furlough, with employers only paying national insurance and pension contributions. Businesses facing reduced demand in tiers 2 and 3 can receive cash grants worth up to £2,100 a month, but, as I have already said to other hon. Members, it is quite right that this matter is brought to the Floor of the House, because this is how we carry out our historic responsibility of seeking redress of grievance.

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

Yesterday, the front page of the Financial Times informed the House that the Government would not be applying the tariffs awarded by the World Trade Organisation against the United States. That may well have a devastating impact on tens of thousands of jobs at Airbus and its suppliers and on the UK steel industry, but there has been no statement to this House—not even a measly written statement. Can we have an urgent debate on why this Government are happy to sell British jobs down the river to the fag end of the Trump Administration?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Department did notify two Select Committees about its intention and wrote to the Chairmen of those Select Committees notifying them, so Parliament was informed, although I share the hon. Gentleman’s view that a written statement would have been preferable, and I am passing that view on to the Department.

As regards the issue of tariffs, these are the reverse of mercy. Mercy is known to bless both the giver and the receiver, but tariffs harm both the payer and the imposter of the tariff. Therefore, removing tariffs and encouraging free trade is something that we should always welcome. It is good economic policy.

Restoration and Renewal

Mark Tami Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I agree with my hon. Friend in both regards. This Palace, these Houses of Parliament are the most wonderful testament to our belief in democracy. It is so magnificent to walk along the passageway from here to the House of Lords and see on either side the representation of our history and the pride in our nation’s story that our forebears took because they believed that the democracy and the constitution we have are precious, worth preserving and worth symbolising in stone. To do that, it is worth spending the money to ensure this Palace is secure. However, yes, we must play our part and accept that there is a degree of inconvenience that we can tolerate, because currently we accept remarkably little. Under current rules, work in the Palace of Westminster can be halted on the say-so of a single MP. I am not sure that all MPs realise that each of their gentle and politely worded requests to keep noise down triggers an automatic downing of tools.

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

They do now.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

They do—well, those who are paying attention do—and I am glad the right hon. Gentleman is paying such strict attention. It is important that we do accept that we may have to compromise in what we expect in this Palace.

Then there is the question of a temporary decant location, and I look forward to hearing Members’ views about what scale and requirements are thought necessary. The Prime Minister has written to the chief executive of the Sponsor Body and Delivery Authority making it clear that costs should be kept to a minimum. He is quite right that putting a severe downward pressure on cost is vital in the face of phrases such as “scope creep” and “gold-plating”, which are words that should make any right thinking politician break out in a cold sweat. Our goal should be a narrow, simple one—to save the Palace of Westminster without spending more than is necessary. That is the only way we will be able to look our constituents in the eye and explain the steps being taken.

--- Later in debate ---

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

As a number of right hon. and hon. Members have said, I am a member of the Sponsor Body—indeed, I think I have served on every committee that has considered this matter. This matter was also the subject of my one Front-Bench speaking engagement in 19 years, although hopefully that will not be repeated. [Hon. Members: “Aw!”] Well, certainly not for the people who were there at the time.

It seems a long time ago that the Joint Committee produced the report that recommended a full decant, using Richmond House as the best option for the safety and security of everybody who works here, with the House of Lords moving to the Queen Elizabeth II centre. We came to that decision after much thought, discussion and debate, and we considered every alternative put before us. That proposal was approved by both Houses, and as a number of Members have said, a Sponsor Body and Delivery Authority were established, based on the experience of the London Olympics. The legislation included a clear provision that when the work was finished, Members would return to this House. I remember that at the time, a rumour was going around that none of us would come back, and that some hideous plot was in place and we would never return.

At the moment, a planning application has been lodged with Westminster City Council to demolish and rebuild much of Richmond House, while retaining the front and side facades. That is in line with the House’s stated desire to replicate much of what already exists here over there. That would give us a very usable building that would also have a legacy for alternative uses.

As we have heard, the Sponsor Body is carrying out a review of the current proposals, which I fully support. The covid crisis has shown us that we can work in ways that were dismissed as unworkable in the past. The vast majority of House and MPs’ staff are working successfully from home. This House has virtual questions, and we even manage to vote virtually, which I am afraid we dismissed previously—I do not know why because it actually works.

The review may return to the option of a reduced intervention in Richmond House—I do not know, and I do not want to pre-empt that—but one thing we could do is have just one voting Lobby. I remember that at the time, the Leader of the House saw that as the end of the world, but I remind him that only in 1836—a year I am sure he remembers fondly—were plans draw up for a second Lobby, at an eye-watering cost of £600, and an extra two weeks to construct. Those were the days. If we are prepared to compromise, we can cap costs and, importantly, cut time. I do not think we will end up with such a great building at the end of the process, but that is something we might have to accept.

In truth, however, a lot of Members want to undermine R&R and do not want it to go ahead—we need to say that. They want to stay here come what may, ignore the decision that we took, and embark on 35 to 40-year maintenance programme. Parliament would be a building site covered in scaffolding and we would no doubt have to evacuate the building every so often, given the asbestos and safety fears.

Asbestos has been mentioned, but it is not in nice, solid sheets, wrapped around piping or in solid boards. It has crumbled and it is in the dust; it is throughout the building in the plasterwork and it is a real safety threat, which we cannot ignore.

If we go down the road of being a building site for 30 years, what sort of advert is that for this country? What are we really saying we can do? However, if that is what the Government want and they believe the House will support it, they should introduce legislation to that effect and not just rely on anonymous briefings about the current proposals to undermine them. Members now openly say, “R&R isn’t happening. It’s been cancelled apparently.” Yesterday, we had the Prime Minister’s letter, which seems to say that it is vital to do something because the place could burn down, but we should also open everything up again for consideration, including the possibility of moving to York, presumably—I hope—on a temporary basis. What about the thousands of staff? Are they to move to York for a period? Was that considered when the option was put forward?

We have options, but let us be sensible. In the light of the Prime Minister’s letter, I hope that the Leader of the House will confirm that any proposal to decant Members and staff from the northern estate to Richmond House, which could delay R&R by up to three years, will not be considered at least until the report has been published, hopefully in October.

We have been kicking the can down the road for more than 70 years. This building is not a safe working environment. As has been said, in the past few weeks, we have had a fire and a collapse of scaffolding. We need to think about everyone who works in this building and act accordingly.

[Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)]

It is a particular pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami). It is a bit like a reunion of the Joint Committee today—many of us served on it—

[Mark Tami]

Bring the band back together!

[Chris Grayling]

Absolutely. Many of us served on the Joint Committee back in 2015-16, when we looked at all the issues exhaustively. We considered all the ideas that were submitted to us, some partially credible that did not understand the nuances of this place and some frankly less credible, but I want to make the point to everybody, particularly new Members, that this is not something we have an option about. We have got to do this. When I became Leader of the House in 2015, two things happened in quick succession that brought that home to me, one here and one elsewhere.

First, we nearly had to close the Chamber indefinitely within a few days of my becoming Leader of the House because asbestos was discovered up in the ventilation shafts. If it had become dislodged, or if it were to be dislodged in future, we would have no choice but to immediately close the Chamber indefinitely. What would happen then? The right hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside is right: the building has huge amounts of asbestos. It is a genuine health hazard, which can bite us at any time. That alone is a reason to do the work.

The second thing that happened had nothing to do with Notre-Dame. A few days after I became Leader of the House, Kingsway caught fire. Kingsway is a road and the wiring under it caught fire and burned for days. I advise all those who have not been down into the basement here to do so. Apart from the sewerage system that was mentioned and the asbestos, the basement contains a jumble of wiring, some very old, that could do just the same—catch fire and burn for days.

The House authorities have always said that they can get us all out and save our lives, but they cannot save the building. If we have a serious fire, this building will burn down, in the way that Clandon Park burned down and in the way that Notre-Dame burned down. That would not only be a gross dereliction of our duty as stewards of this building but a national tragedy. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people come to visit what is a world heritage site. It brings people from around the world; it is one of the world’s iconic landmarks. We cannot possibly put ourselves in a position where year after year the risks increase because the wiring gets older and all the systems get older, so we are making it more likely that there will be a devastating fire and this building will be destroyed. We simply cannot do that.

As my successor as Leader of the House rightly said, we all come to this project slightly sceptical. It is a lot of money to spend and it is not something that is going to be universally popular with constituents around the country. However, the more one delves into the subject, the clearer it becomes that we have absolutely no choice but to do this. We looked at all the alternatives. We considered whether we could put a temporary Parliament somewhere else. But even if we just went up to Horse Guards or somewhere like that, could we really, at seven o’clock on an Opposition day, have queues of MPs walking across Whitehall to come and vote? What a security risk that would be—what a target for terrorists. We have to keep Members of Parliament and, in particular, people who work for us, who are often as at risk as we are if something terrible happens, within the secure estate.

That is why and how we came to the conclusion that Richmond House was the best option. It is within the secure estate. It is a building that has flexibilities. The one bit I have a problem with is that I do not buy the argument that it is not possible to put a temporary Chamber into Richmond House without the scale of work that is being considered at the moment. We might need a compromise so that we do not need that period of time to replicate this Chamber exactly. Yes, of course we need to have a debating chamber, and yes, of course it should be consistent with the way that this Chamber works, but it does not have to be like for like—inch for inch, foot for foot identical to here. The Division Lobbies do not have to have exactly the same relationship to the Chamber. We have learned in the past few weeks that we can do things differently, and I buy that argument. We cannot just spend money willy-nilly because it keeps the environment in which we are going to be working close to what we have here now. If it changes a bit, it does not matter.

We cannot keep delaying this decision. I am frustrated that it is now 2020 and I co-chaired the Committee back in 2015—five years ago. This building is five years older. The systems are five years older. We have looked at all these options before. We looked at whether we could move the Commons to the Lords end. Actually, I am not convinced that the lords would vote for that if they had to leave and we got to stay. But then there are fundamental issues about the services. There is one sewer that services the whole building. So fine, we move to the Lords end, the work is happening down here, and then something goes wrong—the electricity fails or the sewer fails. If the electricity fails, it is going to take the devil’s own job of a time to try to work out what is wrong and how to fix it, and we stop working in the interim. If the sewer breaks, that makes the whole building unusable. It is really very difficult operationally, in a building that was designed as one with the services flowing from one end to the other, to simply say, “We’ll put something down the middle; that end’s fine and this end isn’t.”

We looked at using Westminster Hall, but there are historical reasons why that is difficult. Perhaps more than any other part of this building, we have a duty to protect Westminster Hall. It is the heart of the building which, back in 1834, the fire brigade chose to protect. In the second world war, when the bomb was dropped, the fire brigade chose to protect Westminster Hall. We cannot abuse Westminster Hall because it gives us a chance to stay a bit closer to this building while the works are happening. We looked at that exhaustively and came to the conclusion that it was not possible.

I think that anyone who looks through these issues carefully and in detail will reach the same conclusion that we all did five years ago. I commend the work of the Sponsor Body and the work that is to come from the Delivery Body. We chose to recommend that those were set up because we felt that that was the right way forward —to learn the lessons of the London Olympics, to follow a single approach to doing it, and to learn from how similar bodies made that project work effectively. My request to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and all those who are on the Sponsor Body is: please let us get on with this. With every month and every year that goes by, the risk gets greater. I do not want us, as a generation of politicians, to wake up one morning to find that we were the people who did not act in time, the building is no more, and the taxpayer now faces a much, much bigger bill to restore a landmark, as the French do with Notre-Dame. Please, I say to the Leader of the House and to all colleagues, let us get on with this as quickly as we can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

This debate has often falsely been portrayed as a debate between pragmatic modernisers such as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who by the way I cannot help liking and respecting—I do not know why, but I do—and traditionalists who are putting their own comfort first. Actually, the arguments are far more complex. I have spent quite a lot of time over the past few years talking to architects and mechanical and electrical engineers, and I personally believe that compared with the present plans, there are greener, cheaper, faster and better solutions.

May I burnish my credentials with those who say that we have to get on with this work by saying that 25% of the space in the Palace is currently taken up by unseen historical ventilation systems? I went round some of them yesterday. There are 24-hour fire checks in many roof and basement areas. There were four fires in 2019, eight fires in 2018 and even a small fire in the basement last month. We all accept that the work has to be got on with as quickly as possible.

My contention is that if we follow the present plans, we will face years of delay and public inquiries, because when the original Joint Committee met, it was told that it could fit a temporary Chamber into one of the courtyards of Richmond House. It was given the wrong measurements and that is how we started the whole genesis of knocking down all of Richmond House.

[Mark Tami]

It was not so much that the Joint Committee was given the wrong measurements; actually, the plans were different from the structure that was built, and the basement turned out to be 10% smaller. I do not know whether the builder, whoever it was, had fiddled the system, but that was the reason.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am grateful. That points out some of the problems.

I come to the present proposal to knock down Richmond House, which is, of course, a listed building. I never thought that I would defend a building younger than myself, but I am. It was listed for a purpose—to preserve it. It is an award-winning building. The best way to be carbon neutral, actually, is not to knock down an existing building, so even if people are in favour of full decant—I do not want to repeat all the arguments—we do not need to knock down Richmond House. I have been working with SAVE, the architectural heritage association, and it is perfectly possible to build a temporary Chamber in the courtyard. If it is temporary, it may be a tiny bit uncomfortable. There will be less of a tendency, once we leave this building, for the works to drag on for five or 10 years—and it will be five or 10 years. We have seen with modern voting systems that we can vote electronically. We do not need two wide Division Lobbies, and all the rest.

I am looking now to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I think that we can very quickly probably come to a kind of consensus—that we do not need to go to the super-gold-plated option of knocking down Richmond House and exactly replicating this space, with the Division Lobbies. They have even made the Division Lobbies wide enough to have the oriel windows, but we do not need those in any temporary future Chamber.

There is a better, cheaper, faster alternative, however, and I echo the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown). I have been working with Anthony Delarue, a well-respected architect, who has a long history of working with historic buildings. It is perfectly possible to have a line of route through Westminster Hall, St Stephen’s Hall and Central Lobby into the House of Lords Chamber, which could be used by the House of Commons, as it was in the second world war, perhaps with the House of Lords put in the Royal Gallery. It would be perfectly possible, according to expert opinion, to have the services taken from outside—from services in Abingdon gardens or Victoria Tower gardens—and we could start getting on with this work now.

Contrary to the horror stories that we have been told, it is possible to get on with this work, make considerable progress with the ventilation systems, the heating systems, the electrical and mechanical systems and the asbestos systems while we continue to work in this Palace, which is the iconic home of British democracy. As we have heard, it has 1 million visitors every year. Do we really want to close this building down? I think that it will be 10 years—I do not think it will be five years once we lose control of this process. Do we want to lose 1 million people a year times 10? That is a lot of schoolchildren who will never visit this place. At least if we can keep Westminster Hall and Central Lobby open, and if we can have visitors coming to witness our debates in the House of Lords Chamber and visiting the House of Lords in the Royal Gallery, we would be doing a service to our constituents.

I repeat this vital point. We are told again and again that it is impossible to split up the services. I have been around in the past week with a mechanical and electrical engineer and he says that that is simply not true. After all, we create, in days, pop concerts for hundreds of thousands of people, but we are told, “No, we can’t do that. We can’t take services from outside. It’s all too difficult. We have to surrender control of the process.” I simply do not buy into that. I think that it is groupthink and, frankly, that we have been bamboozled in the past four or five years. There are alternative, costed, expert opinions saying that there are cheaper, greener and better ways to do this. If there is a real fire risk, and I think there is a real fire risk, why delay this whole process for years while we seek to demolish Richmond House, while we have a public inquiry and while we build a permanent replica Chamber?

By the way, what will we actually use that Chamber for? When visitors come here in 10, 15 or 20 years’ time, do they want to be visiting a replica? They will want to see this Chamber, where Winston Churchill spoke or Jacob Rees-Mogg—that great orator of the early 21st century. They do not want to be going to see a replica. It will be the most glorious white elephant.

And do we really want to move the House of Lords to QEII, with all the security implications and losing the rent that the Government gain from it? The plans for QEII are wildly extravagant: those involved want to create a roof-top terrace, and they want to demolish the existing conference hall so that the height of the temporary House of Lords Chamber is the same as the existing House of Lords Chamber. The fact is that this has become out of control.

I see the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), in her place, and we are the guardians of the public purse. Of course we have to put safety first and of course we have to do the work properly, but we do not need to have a feeding feast over 10 years or 15 years, costing between £10 billion and £20 billion, with this gold-plated option of demolishing Richmond House, moving out completely and stripping everything out of this building while we are evicted.

I end on this point: there is a compromise, and I wish my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) well. The debate has moved on, even in small things or not so small things. We were told even quite recently—I was told this by the present Leader of the House—that we had to knock down Richmond House because we needed more office space. That is a strange and quite a circular sort of argument: we need to knock down an office building to get more office workers. We do not need them. The entire civil service is now working virtually and the entire civil service will almost certainly go on to a three-day week. We have proven that we do not need an emergency Chamber in case of a disaster; we can work virtually for a few weeks or, indeed, a few months. The whole debate has moved on and we need to think again, but we do not need to delay. We can get on with the work around us now, and that is what we should do.

Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill

Mark Tami Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st May 2019 Commons Chamber

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

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. As you say, it is my first appearance at the Dispatch Box in 18 years—12 years as a Whip. I nearly got here on a Friday when the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) had a Bill. I was ready and primed, but he did not actually move the Bill, so there we are. Things come to those who wait. I also thank Matt Chorley at The Times’ “Red Box” newsletter for making my appearance his trivia question of the day.

I should state that I am a member of the shadow Sponsor Body, and it is a pleasure to serve on it with several other Members. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part in today’s proceedings. The tone of the debate has been positive, which reflects the growing understanding that this project cannot wait. We really must get on with it and establish the appropriate governance arrangements.

Some Members have suggested that this not the right time to be doing this, which I suppose is understandable, but to some extent that is why we are here now. Quite frankly, it has never been the right time to do it. I can understand that Governments of whatever colour could say, “Well, we’d rather leave it to somebody else,” but that is what we have been doing since the second world war, when the roof and various other work was bodged, and we are paying the price for that today. If we had addressed some of those concerns many years ago, we may not be facing the problems that we have today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made some important points about planning, which I certainly have worries about. We must keep a firm eye on planning to ensure that it does not hold up the project, because if the northern estate project is delayed, everything else will suffer and the timescales will slip, as they have already.

The right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman), with whom I had the pleasure of serving on the Joint Committee on the Draft Parliamentary Buildings Bill, raised some important points, referring to the growing risk of delay. Like several other Members, she mentioned disability issues and the importance of doing whatever we can to make this place as disability-friendly as possible.

Now, where do I start with the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart)? I will be honest with him that he was fairly far down my list of people to vote for to be Speaker, but the idea of making him live in this place is suddenly very appealing.

The right hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) spoke in great detail about some of the considerable problems we have to face. The hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), with whom I have the pleasure of serving on the Administration Committee, stated how important it is to consider how people view this place—not only in this country, but around the world—and that the northern estate project should be placed under the Sponsor Body’s responsibility as soon as possible. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray), who like me has had the pleasure of serving on every R and R body so far, told us of his desire to have a modern Parliament within the current structures.

The right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) raised his concerns about slippage and what he saw as the complex nature of the project’s governance. I agree with what he and other Members said about the cloisters. Speaking as the Opposition accommodation Whip, moving people out and causing all those problems only for us to walk past it every day to see that, in fact, nothing is happening is a lesson that we should learn for the future.

The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) told us of his experience in the Scottish Parliament, which is useful, although I do not think we will be taking his advice on buying desks. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) spoke of the need for honesty in costs and for getting on with addressing the problems we face.

A number of years ago, many of us believed that we could somehow carry on doing the work around us, but the evidence clearly points otherwise. Importantly, as a number of Members said, it is not just about us in the Chamber or those in the other place; it is about the thousands of people who work here—many of them work longer hours than we do at the moment—and the more than a million people who visit this place every year.

From a health and safety point of view, this building is simply not fit for purpose. We need to restore and renew it to be fit for the 21st century. I would suggest to any Member who has not done so that they visit the basement to view the extent of the challenge facing us. It is not just below ground; it is above ground, too. A number of Members have spoken about how masonry is falling on a fairly regular basis, and we need only look at the netting around the building to understand the threat.

The biggest threat, and a number of Members have mentioned this, is fire. Although a lot of work has been done, we need only look at the terrible events at Notre Dame to realise how quickly a fire can take hold and threaten not only the entire structure of the building but, importantly, the people who work in it.

A key component of the proposed decant is the completion of the northern estate programme, which has perhaps gone somewhat under the radar, with a lot of the focus being on the Palace itself. The public consultation is under way, and I am sure many hon. Members have taken the opportunity to view the model or diorama—I never know the correct term—of Richmond House and the northern estate. I encourage Members who have not seen it to do so.

It is a bold design that will provide a positive legacy, with a building that can be adapted for a variety of uses, as well as office accommodation for Members of this House. There will be a second Chamber that we can hold in reserve, and we could use it for conferences and a whole host of uses that the Leader of the House has mentioned. It certainly will not be a white elephant. I think it will be a very useful part of this House.

I accept that the proposals for Richmond House are controversial and have generated interest. Some have argued that we should go to a different location, but I can assure the House, as the Leader of the House did, that a considerable amount of work went into considering numerous other locations. Again, if purely from a security point of view, Richmond House makes so much sense because it can easily be brought within the secure zone, which is a requirement that is, unfortunately, now far more important than it would have been a number of years ago—it is one of the key things that we have to think about. It is about protecting not only us, as Members, but all the people who work here, too.

We need to press ahead as quickly as possible with the northern estate project, which is central to the whole R and R programme. I am delighted to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch that the dreaded MOD car park question will hopefully be solved, or has been solved, which should lessen the delay we were facing.

I would like to press the Minister on a key aspect of the R and R programme, about which a number of Members have spoken: legacy. I do not just mean the buildings, although they are important. I mean legacy in terms of the skills and apprenticeships that the programme will deliver—a legacy that should stretch far beyond London and the south-east.

The programme must be open to employees of businesses large and small across the UK. The procurement process needs to be fair and transparent, with companies across the country bidding for work. I hope that roadshows will go around the country explaining the opportunities. We cannot have a situation in which contracts are given to the same companies as always, which those giving the contracts are comfortable with. For all the talk about stretching out there, the rules and regulations can effectively debar smaller companies from entering the process.

This project may be based in London, but it must not be London-centric. Legacy must include better access for the public, improved educational facilities and the creation of new outreach spaces. As numerous Members have said, we must also make sure that the building is made as disabled-friendly as possible. That includes removing small stairways where we do not need them and also relates to the noise within the building. There are also issues that I had not thought about, to be frank. For partially sighted Members, clear glass doors with nothing on them are a major problem—we may think they look nice, but they can be a major obstacle. People across the House should be involved in looking at what we are going to do.

My personal experience as a member of the shadow Sponsor Board is that external board members—including Liz Peace, the excellent chair, who has been mentioned—play a positive and important role. Continuity is so important. I agree with other Members that there does not seem to be an allowance to enable existing members to go into the statutory body; they would have to go back through the process they went through a year ago. The danger is that we could lose that vital experience at a critical time for the project. At this point, I want to put on the record my thanks to Tom Healey, who has served the shadow Sponsor Board as director and is now returning to the House. He is a hard-working chap who has served us very well. I wish him all the best for the future.

In his opening remarks, my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) highlighted five key areas to which I hope the Government will respond. The Opposition welcome the Bill today, and I wish it speedy progress. We have put off this vital work for 70 or perhaps 100 years. Let us be bold, let us be brave, and above all let us get on with it.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Before I call the Minister, I want to make an announcement. There was a point of order about the written statement from the Ministry of Defence. It is not online, but copies are now available for Members to read.

Restoration and Renewal (Report of the Joint Committee)

Mark Tami Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

There has been much extensive consultation, formal and informal, over many years, so that is not the case. In fact, reports from the Joint Committee, the Public Accounts Committee and the Treasury Committee, and the recent financial and explanatory memorandums, have all been useful tools for Members and staff of this place, who wish to acquaint themselves further with the issues around cost and complexity. These documents have also made clear the wide range of views on costs and varying approaches to the works.

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

As someone who served on the R and R Committee, I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) that there was consultation, and we were very keen that the staff of the Palace were very much involved in this whole process.

[Andrea Leadsom]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his clarification and grateful to him also for his contribution to the Joint Committee.

That brings me to motion No. 2. If the House accepts that it will bear the cost from the taxpayer’s purse, it will be concluding that the work should be undertaken only on the basis of the most robust cost assessments possible. So the second motion seeks to establish an Olympic-style delivery authority, overseen by a sponsor board that will have a majority of members who are parliamentarians. That would produce up-to-date, fully costed proposals for restoration and renewal as soon as possible. The establishment of an Olympic-style delivery authority with external professionals will guard against unacceptable cost and timetable overruns of the sort that we saw with the Elizabeth Tower refurbishment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Valerie Vaz]

That is absolutely right. As we have seen from Crossrail and from the Elizabeth Tower project, we never know what we are going to find. The Elizabeth Tower had structural issues, which was why the costs increased. With Crossrail, they actually found bodies. We do not know what they are going to find under here. There might be the odd monarch or two, or perhaps the odd Member or two following the basement visit. Who knows?

[Mark Tami]

Where’s Boris?

--- Later in debate ---

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

I want to be brief, so I will not take interventions.

It seems a very long time since we had the pleasure of sitting on the R and R Committee—it seems a very long time because it was in fact a very long time ago. We reported in September 2016, and it is now the beginning of 2018, so it has been the best part of 17 or 18 months, in which time the Government have ducked, dived and dodged, and done everything but bring this issue to the House. Finally, they have tabled two motions, the purpose of which, as hon. Members have said, is to kick the can down the road. I really thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), therefore, for tabling her amendment today.

It is crazy that this is a half-day debate. Regardless of hon. Members’ views—whether they are in favour of or against moving out—it is crazy that one of the most important buildings in the country, the home of our democratic institutions, only merits a few hours of debate. When the R and R Committee first met in July 2015, I started with the view that we should stay. We had been here for hundreds of years and I thought we could do the work around us. How difficult could it be? Like other Members have said, the fear that, if we moved out, we would never move back again was certainly doing the rounds.

I changed my mind. I recognised that the only sensible choice was a full decant—not a partial decant and certainly not staying here and somehow muddling through for 30 or 35 years. I came to that decision because I—and, indeed, the whole Committee—looked at the evidence. I know we live in world today where evidence and facts are to be ignored—or if we do not like them, we just create our own or find other ones that suit our case—but we did not do that. By the end, every member of the Committee recognised that remaining in the House was not a sensible option, for a whole host of reasons.

Cost was one of those reasons, but today I want to talk about just two aspects: safety and security. I advise those who have not taken the tour of the basement to do so and to see for themselves what other hon. Members have talked about: the state of the plumbing and electrics, and the constant measures that have to be taken because of the risk of fire.

A very important point is that every year we are spending tens of billions of pounds—[Hon. Members: “Millions.”] I am sorry. We are spending tens of millions of pounds just to patch and make do, and that figure is growing. Sadly, whichever option we choose, much of that work will be ripped out because it is a muddling-through solution. We are not even standing still: the building is getting worse by the day. We are falling further and further behind and we face the real prospect of a catastrophic failure. If a fire started and was funnelled through the 98 or so risers in the building, the effect would be devastating. I think it fair to say that, if someone had to design a building to burn down, this would be a pretty good one to start with.

We hear a great deal about the possibility that Members would be elected and would then not be able to sit in the Chamber, but what about their safety? And what about the safety of the thousands of employees who work in the building? We should be thinking about them when we vote tonight. A lot of work is being done on fire safety, but we must be honest: it is badly behind schedule. If a fire broke out and then took hold, and there were people working on the top floor of the building, what would be their chances of getting out? I know that that sounds dramatic, but we know the facts and we are sitting here talking about, effectively, doing nothing about them—and possibly voting to do nothing about them.

However, as other Members have said, fire is not the only risk. Asbestos is a huge problem. When we know exactly where it is, we may be able to leave it in place, or at least know how to handle it, but we do not know exactly where it is. Large parts of the building may contain asbestos, but we just do not know, so we have to establish precautions. Even if we decided to stay, we would probably be evacuated on a regular basis because a ceiling had come down and asbestos was present.

As we have seen, security is an existing and growing problem for us. Some Members think that we can maintain security while working in a building site, but I do not see how that could work. I have been here long enough to remember—I was sitting on the opposite Benches at the time—when the pro-hunting protesters entered the Chamber. And how did they get into the building? They pretended to be contractors. The threat that we face now is far more severe than that. I think there is no doubt that if we stayed, security would be compromised.

We need to face facts. A full decant in conjunction with the programme of work on the northern estate, utilising Richmond House as a secure zone, is the only sensible option. Of course it is a difficult decision and it does involve a lot of taxpayers’ money, but we are here to make difficult decisions and to defend them if we think that they are right. Nothing will be served by dithering and delay. Let us get on with it and deliver a Parliament that preserves its rich history, but is fit and safe for the 21st century.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

English Votes for English Laws

Mark Tami Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Commons Chamber

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

I shall make a few practical points about the proposals and explain how they may adversely affect a border area such as the one I represent. I say “border”, but to all intents and purposes, the border is not there for that area between north-east Wales and north-west England. Every day, thousands of people leave north Wales to work in England and thousands cross the border the other way. Companies such as Airbus employ 7,000 people, 60% living in Wales and 40% in England. Likewise, many people living in north Wales work at the large plants in north-west England, particularly at Vauxhall in Ellesmere Port. We are a distinct region spanning north-east Wales and north-west England. The Mersey Dee Alliance has done a lot of work promoting this area, and politicians of all political parties have worked well to get our area recognised as a distinct region and to secure positive outcomes for it.

The Government like to tell us that English votes for English laws is a clearcut issue, but it is not—and we have heard today many reasons why it is not. Residents of Alyn and Deeside use healthcare services both sides of the border. Our children’s hospital is the Alder Hey, which happens to be in Liverpool, and our heart hospital is based there, too. We use cancer services at Christie’s and Clatterbridge. So why should I or other Members representing north Wales be prevented from participating in decisions that will affect the people who elect us to serve them?

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is raising important points about the complexities and practicalities in north Wales. Does he appreciate that it is the same for south Wales constituents? As many as 12,000 people commute from Newport and Monmouthshire to England every day for work, and they travel over the Severn bridges, whose tolling responsibilities lie wholly with the Department for Transport. Does my hon. Friend agree that Wales has a particularly dense border, making it an acute problem for us when 48% of people live within 25 miles of the border?

[Mark Tami]

I agree. My hon. Friend and I have talked about this many times. I may be based in north Wales and she in south Wales, but there are many similarities.

Countess of Chester hospital was built to serve the needs of the people of Chester and Deeside, so it is not an England-only hospital. A third of its patients come from Wales. The previous Member of Parliament for City of Chester used to stand up in the Chamber and tell us about the thousands of Welsh patients who were fleeing across the border to use his hospital, but the truth was that it was their hospital as well. It was built to serve the people of Deeside as much as the people of Chester.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas) referred to an arrangement whereby the governors of Countess of Chester, and other hospitals, would be elected from Wrexham and from Flintshire. Like my hon. Friend, I am a member of the Countess of Chester NHS foundation trust. I receive ballot papers that enable me to elect governors who, obviously, will do their best to represent the people of Flintshire and Wrexham. However, in my capacity as the Member of Parliament, I am to be deprived of the right to take part in that process.

The Government are approaching this issue from entirely the wrong direction. We should not be aiming at creating two tiers of Members of Parliament; we should be concentrating on securing proper devolution for England, whatever that may be. It may involve an English Parliament, or it may involve some other arrangement.

[Mr David Jones]

The hon. Gentleman speaks of devolution for England. That might or might not be a good thing, but if a proposal for devolution were put to the people of England in a referendum and they rejected it—as people in the north-east rejected it a few years ago—would not the same problem arise?

[Mark Tami]

I accept that that was the result then. The right hon. Gentleman’s party was strongly opposed to devolution at that time, but it has had a bit of a turn of face, and is now promoting it. Indeed, a number of people who were very much against devolution have gone down the road to Damascus and changed their opinion, and I am pleased they have.

[Mr Grieve]

I think that the hon. Gentleman may have misunderstood one of the issues. I want to keep the United Kingdom together, so I am prepared to work within the devolution settlements that have been achieved, and to try to build on them. England, however, has been a unitary state since the ninth century, and I have to tell him that my constituents have no interest whatsoever in the idea of regional devolution. They do want more accountability at local government level, but that is an entirely different matter.

[Mark Tami]

There is no model that will fit every situation. The Mayor of London and the London Assembly, for instance, may not be able to legislate, but they have far-reaching powers in respect of transport and policing. I note that the Government are not intent on restricting the right of London MPs to vote on issues that affect other parts of England. The Government are considering devolving powers to city regions At some time in the future, will we say that MPs in those regions are prevented from taking a view on other parts of England? I do not think that the Government are saying that now, but where does it start and where does it end?

A number of Members have asked what constitutes an English-only issue. No one really knows. It will be up to you to decide, Mr Speaker, and good luck to you, Sir, There is clearly a flaw in the proposals, in that there does not appear to be a system allowing us to make representations on whether Wales or Scotland, for instance, should be included in the process.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

(North Durham) (Lab): Does my hon. Friend think it likely that the Government will announce that a Bill is English-only before the Speaker has even had a chance to look at it? Might there be some conflict, or confusion, in the eyes of the public?

[Mark Tami]

I do, and the Leader of the House said earlier today that he has already looked at this, and there are already Bills coming forward that he seems to have decided will be English-only Bills. I thought this was a matter for the Speaker to decide, but clearly the Leader of the House has decided what those Bills will be.

I fear that, rather than solve the problem of English votes, we will merely fan the flames of nationalism. The Government need to make their mind up: do we want to keep the United Kingdom together with a united and equal Parliament, or not? We are at that crossroads.

English Votes on English Laws

Mark Tami Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Wayne David]

I am all in favour of dialogue and of different opinions being taken into account. What I am against is people effectively being vetoed out of any possible arrangements. That is very harmful.

Let me give another example of how the proposals could deny Wales a legitimate voice in the deliberations of this House. We may well see in the near future legislation for a new runway at Heathrow. It could be decided by a planning application or by a hybrid Bill. If such a Bill comes before the House of Commons, it will have a huge impact on the people of Wales. We will be strongly in favour of an extra runway at Heathrow. It will have a huge and positive impact on Wales, yet we will be excluded from any say or deliberation on that. That is fundamentally unfair. There would be an English veto against us if we promoted something that would favour Welsh interests, when it legitimately should do so.

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

My hon. Friend identifies an important point, which is the determination of what is an English issue? The point that he has just made shows that something that may appear on the surface to be an English issue actually has a great effect on Wales.

English Votes for English Laws and North Wales

Mark Tami Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) for securing this important debate.

I represent a border area, but in reality the border does not exist. As others have mentioned, many thousands of people from North Wales travel across it to go to work at Vauxhall in Ellesmere Port, and at many other employers in the north-west. Equally, many people from England travel the other way to work at Airbus, Toyota, Deeside industrial park and many other places. Our road and rail networks work east to west, but do not work particularly well north to south. The Mersey Dee Alliance has worked well to promote the region as economically important not only to North Wales but to the north-west of England.

I and many other MPs from North Wales rightfully think that we should have a view on what happens on both sides of the border, as it affects the people we represent, but clearly the Government, with their usual approach, are trying to find a short-term solution to a long-term problem and have come up with a bit of a dog’s breakfast.

[Mr David Jones]

The hon. Gentleman speaks of short-termism. Does he not agree that the devolution settlement was lashed up hastily by the Labour Government?

[Mark Tami]

I do not. The right hon. Gentleman is always blaming someone else. He and his party have been in government for some time now. Surely they should take some responsibility.

Time is short, so I will set out just one example: healthcare. People in Alyn and Deeside use healthcare on both sides of the border, as has been touched on. Our children’s hospital is the Alder Hey, our heart hospital is Broadgreen, and we use services at Gobowen, the Christie and Clatterbridge.

The hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (James Davies) mentioned the Countess of Chester hospital. It may be in Chester, but it was built to serve the people of Chester and Deeside. The previous MP for Chester used to stand up in the Chamber and talk about thousands of people from north-east Wales flooding across the border to go to that hospital. It is their hospital; it was built to serve the people of both Chester and north-east Wales—in particular the people of Alyn and Deeside. There are representatives on its council of governors from Flintshire and Wrexham. They have their view, and rightfully so. If those Welsh patients did not use it and the hospital served only the catchment area of Chester, I question whether it would be viable. Many people in Alyn and Deeside are registered with doctors and dentists on the English side of the border and vice versa. We are a particular and very different region.

Where does this start and end? Are the Government saying that because policing and transport powers are devolved to the Mayor of London and the London Assembly, London MPs should not have a view on those issues—is that what we are saying? We are talking about giving powers to city regions—will the MPs from those areas not be allowed to have a view? The question that no one has answered, although lots of Members have asked it, is: what is an English-only law? The Government need to decide where they stand. Are they going to treat people equally, and do they actually believe in the United Kingdom?

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Tami]

Will the Minister give way?

[Dr Coffey]

I am short of time—I have less than a minute—so I will not be able to.

The right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) said that he might lose his voice, but he clearly has not. When we were talking about devolved Administrations and devolved matters last month, he said:

“I understand the need to ensure that people in England cannot have a say on some of those issues”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 661.]

However, he seems to want it the other way around.

The hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas) asked about the definition of an English-only law, and I have referred to the Education Act 2011, which went through in the last Parliament. This is not about having a panic or break-up of the Union, but about settling that balance.

I wish I had time to cover all the other issues, but I just remind the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), who suggested that these things have been drawn up in secret, that Labour was invited to participate in the Cabinet Committee but refused to last year. Labour had the chance but decided not to do so.

In conclusion, we will take action to answer the West Lothian question and ensure that our constitutional settlement is fair and sustainable in the light of further devolution, and I believe that that will strengthen the Union.

Use of the Chamber (Youth Parliament)

Mark Tami Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

If my hon. Friend is chastising me for being consistent, that is a chastisement I will take. I know it is a novel concept in politics to actually stick to your guns about something and believe in something and not change your opinion in response to the prevailing political wind. My hon. Friend may think it is a great thing to change one’s mind every five minutes, depending on the prevailing political mood. I rather think that being consistent is a virtue in politics, even if he disagrees.

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

Should we not do everything we can to encourage more younger people to be interested in this place, and to prevent them from thinking of it as something distant that they should not be involved in?

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful for the interventions of the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend. We were told originally that the Youth Parliament was different because we needed to get more young people interested in politics. By definition, the Members of the Youth Parliament are already interested in politics and political issues and are taking the lead on these things. If we want to find a group of young people that are not already involved in the political process and inspire them to get involved, we should invite everybody other than the Youth Parliament to come and sit on these Benches, because presumably they are the ones we need to reach. Those in the Youth Parliament seem to be the last people we should invite to sit on these Benches if our reason for doing so is to get more people involved and interested in politics. So I am afraid the hon. Gentleman’s arguments disintegrate straightaway.

What we have here is the usual rather sad charade of middle-aged Members of Parliament trying to curry favour with the youth and with the young vote. They ask themselves, “How can we give youthful voters the impression that we are trendy?” Basically, one way is to advocate motherhood and apple-pie tripe like this. They think that by doing these sorts of things they will prove that they are in touch with the youth and are really trendy, and that young voters will all go out and vote for them. I do not think young people are as stupid as hon. Members seem to think they are—that just because they are allowed to sit here once a year, they will all go flooding in and vote for those Members when the election comes. Hope is triumphing over reality, and it does not make them look trendy at all.

House of Commons Governance

Mark Tami Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend. When she rose as I was speaking about leaks, I thought perhaps she had something to say about her work as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, but I was on the wrong track. Of course she is right about that, and I greatly welcome the initiative that you, Mr Speaker, have taken.

We have endeavoured to ensure that all our recommendations will assist in decision taking for the restoration and renewal programme that will take place in the next Parliament. Those decisions will have to be made on a bicameral basis: it is a single building for two Chambers. It is the essence of any properly functioning bicameral system that each Chamber should govern its own work, and it was no part of our remit or intent to usurp the autonomy of the other place. However, we took plenty of evidence from both ends of the Palace, including from the Lord Speaker, about how, co-operatively, there could be better joint working between the two Houses. Those proposals are highlighted in recommendations 1 and 2 of our report.

I turn now to the Commons itself and the current corporate arrangements for running this place, which are essentially with the House of Commons Commission, chaired by you, Mr Speaker, and, underneath that, the Management Board. The respective roles of the Commission and the Management Board were unclear not only to staff and Members—to many Members their roles were not only unclear but their existence was unknown—but even to some of those who sat on those bodies. The Committee’s recommendations for reform of the Commission and the replacement of the Management Board with an Executive Committee flow directly from the assessment that those two bodies are not working, either individually or together, as effectively as they should. Our aim has been to bring together Members and officials into a single coherent structure.

One key change proposed to the Commission is in respect of Back-Bench Members of the Commission. We recommend that the current three—one from each of the largest parties—should be replaced by four Members, by the addition of a fourth from the minority parties. At present, the Back-Bench Members, distinguished though they are, are effectively nominated by the Whips Offices. In future—[Interruption.] Mr Speaker, will you note the fact that the Opposition Whip has broken rule one of all Whips, which is to remain silent. [Interruption.] No, it was not a cough. I was about to say that the current Back-Bench Members are effectively nominated by the dark forces of the Whips, but I decided to be nice to them by leaving that out. I will now ensure that it goes back on the record. In future, to avoid these dark forces of the Whips Office, we recommended that each of the four should be elected by the whole House. We also added that they should be remunerated on the same basis as Chairs of Committees.

We looked carefully at the work of the Finance and Services Committee and of the Administration Committee. Each has been very ably chaired by the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), who is in his place, and by the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst). The former happens to have been also a member of the Commission, while the latter has not. We thought that that was unsatisfactory, and that the Chairs of both those Committees should, ex officio, be members of the Commission.

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

As a member of the Administration Committee and also a Whip—I declare my role as a dark force—I think that that is a very important point. Without that direct link, the Administration Committee is undermined. It is important that the Chair of that Committee is on the Commission.

[Mr Straw]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I should also say that my general remarks about Whips exclude him, as a pairing Whip, because I have to ingratiate myself with him on a regular basis.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention and for his evidence. We did come to the issue from different perspectives, but the fact that this is a unanimous report does not reflect any sense of it coming from a search of the lowest common denominators—rather, the highest common factors. I will come on to the issue of implementation in a moment.

A second reform that we propose to the Commission concerns non-executive members. At the moment, there are external, non-executive members, who have great outside professional experience, who sit on the Management Board, but not on the Commission. We thought that this was a rather eccentric arrangement not consistent with the principles of governance outside, and that it ought to be the other way round. We therefore proposed that two non-executives should sit on the Commission and, in addition, so too would the two senior officials of the House, a matter I shall come on to in a moment.

As I have indicated, the evidence we received showed clearly that the relationship between the Commission and the Management Board was opaque. So alongside the strengthened Commission, the Management Board will be replaced by a streamlined executive committee.

The potentially trickiest issue for us to deal with was the senior leadership of the House service. As the House is well aware, not least from the debate that we had on 10 September and from the evidence that we received, there is a wide range of opinion on this issue. Some favoured the status quo, some wanted a chief executive above the Clerk, some wanted a chief operating officer under the Clerk, and some thought the two functions should be separated entirely, with a Clerk and a chief executive of equal status. We thought hard about this. There are, as we all recognised, advantages and disadvantages to each proposal. In the end the Committee responded to what it heard from staff and from many others by endorsing the objective of a single unified House service.

This was significant because the House service is often portrayed as being divided into parliamentary and non-parliamentary elements. Asserting that the service should be unified is important both for rejecting the perception that some parts of the service are second class, and for emphasising that the primary purpose of the whole service—all parts of it—is to support the House’s parliamentary functions. But we also accepted that there had to be a strengthening of the leadership of those functions and of the hundreds of staff beyond the direct work of the Clerks.

It is not accidental, in our view, that although in the whole time that I have sat in the House there have rarely been any complaints or concerns about the standards of service provided to this House and its Committees in respect of our core functions, there have been myriad complaints about the way our employers—the public—have been treated when they try to get into this place, and from Members about the IT system, room bookings and many aspects of the maintenance of this place.

I have already spoken about leaks in the Members’ Lobby. I hope Mr Speaker will allow me an excursion into the bowels of what was the cell block of the old Canon Row police station, which has housed the House of Commons gym for some decades. My hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), the shadow Leader of the House, and I are often to be seen there ensuring that we remain trim and fit. The refurbishment of the Commons’ gym may seem a second-order issue to those who do not use the facility, but for those of us who do, and for the dedicated staff of the gym, the saga of its refurbishment has not been a pretty one—nor, as the weekend’s press indicates, has it enhanced the reputation of Parliament.

Classic and avoidable errors were made in the refurbishment programme, which was due to be finished in early September and has only just been finished. I understand that the costs quadrupled. I know for certain that the specifications were changed and changed again after agreement had been reached with the gym management. It was disruptive in the extreme to us who use it and also to the staff. I thought that I had been able to put cold showers behind me when I left school 50 years ago but, like many other Members, I have had to endure cold showers, or no showers, as late as last week.

On Monday, having spent my two hours in the gym, I came out in anticipation of having a shower, only to discover that in the two hours that I had been working away in the gym, the showers had packed up. Happily, I did not meet any constituents, but other rather surprised Members will have seen me wearing my jacket over my gym kit and carrying the rest of my clothes, on my way to find a shower elsewhere. It is amusing—we are all tolerant of the situation—but it tells a story about why a better grip is needed of such issues.

[Mark Tami]

I do not understand how we have reached such a state, but the fact that the building is listed makes it difficult to do certain things, such as putting up a sign. I was amazed to learn that there is a signage committee in the House, which will decide on the type of sign and the size and colour of the signs that are permitted. It takes ages to get even the simplest thing done.

[Mr Straw]

I accept that there are such problems. This is a grade I listed building. I do not dispute the dedication of staff, but stronger leadership and greater clarity are needed.

We propose that the position of Clerk and chief executive should be split. There should in future be a Clerk, and working alongside her or him, there should be a new post of director general of the House of Commons. We had lots of debate about nomenclature. Others may lift the veil on the wide range of titles we considered. We decided on this title, rather than CEO or COO and many others, because, as we say in paragraph 157, we wanted a title that emphasised the authority of the new post, and would allow it to evolve unburdened by preconceptions.

As a consequence of calling this senior person director general of the House of Commons, the people currently titled directors general will need to be re-titled directors. There is a separate issue about whether the new post should become an additional accounting officer, an arrangement that exists in some Government Departments. I hope the Commission will consider that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr William Hague)]

I am very pleased to participate in this debate on behalf of the Government and as a member of the House of Commons Commission. As hon. Members know, and as the Government have always said, this is a matter primarily—entirely, really—for the House as a whole. I regard the principal role of the Government as being to facilitate consideration by the House and then to support the rapid implementation of what the House agrees.

I must first congratulate the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw)—I have said this before at various points over the past few weeks but wish to reiterate it; I really mean it—not just on the very clear and convincing way in which he moved the motion but on the dedication shown by him and all the members of his Committee over the past few months. Back in September, the House set the Chair it nominated and the Committee it subsequently established quite a formidable task, both in terms of the knottiness of the problem they were asked to confront and the time scale for resolution that was set. The right hon. Gentleman and his Committee were not only up to this task but exceeded it by some margin in delivering their report ahead of schedule and, most importantly given the circumstances, with a unanimity that appeared at the beginning to be very difficult to achieve. I hope that this effusion of praise allays any fear he had that he would have to withdraw the thanks that he expressed earlier.

The Committee was no doubt helped to reach a consensus not only by the skills of its Chair but by the diligent and inclusive way in which it set about hearing views from across the House—from Members in all corners of the House and from staff in all departments and at all grades. I think we have all learned a great deal about the House in which we work as a result of this exercise. This work and this evidence have enabled the Committee to devise a thoughtful and sensible set of proposals that I sincerely hope and believe the whole House can now unite around.

The motion before us rightly welcomes the Committee’s report and agrees with almost every dot and comma, as the right hon. Gentleman explained. It also seeks agreement to encourage all those responsible for implementation to get on with that important task. I wish to explain the reason for the one small point of difference between the motion and the Committee’s original draft motion, since it was partly my suggestion that the change be made.

The Committee envisaged that the Chairs of the Administration and the Finance Committees would be drawn from the four Back-Bench members of the Commission once they were in place. On reflection, that could lead to a situation in which three of the Back-Bench members had the expertise and desire to chair the Finance Committee but no one was keen to chair the Administration Committee, or vice versa.

[Mark Tami]

Never!

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Eagle]

The direction of the discussion so far, like that of the report by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn, is that the holders of the two jobs have to work in harmony, but that each must have their own autonomy and authority, so one cannot have a veto over the other. It is for the Commission to decide how and in what way it advertises the posts and with how much alacrity it does so, but I hope that it will act with alacrity. It is important for both posts to be advertised, and that at least one of them, the Clerk’s appointment, should proceed as quickly as possible. I agree with the Leader of the House that it ought to be done and dusted, barring unforeseen circumstances, before the Dissolution, but in my view—this is a matter for the House to decide today and for the Commission to debate and decide on Monday—I for one think that we should by then also be pretty well on with the arrangements to appoint the director general. I expect that appointment to be made quite quickly in the new Parliament.

I congratulate, and express my admiration for, the Committee on the work that it did in such a short time. I am not the first speaker today, and I am certain that I will not be the last, to emphasise that point. The Committee was ably led by my right hon. Friend—when not in the gym—in tenacious pursuit of a solution that would bind wounds and take the House forward. He worked his Committee extremely hard. Members from both sides of the House took a close interest in its work, and many gave both written and oral evidence. Thanks should go to all members of the Committee, who set aside much time to ensure that they could fulfil the remit set by the House and report ahead of the tough deadline that we gave them. There is much that we are grateful to them for. We must also thank Members of the House of Lords, senior managers, Clerks and other employees of the House at all levels for their willingness to engage with the Committee’s work.

The Committee’s recommendations distilled the wealth of experience with which it was provided to create a vision for a House of Commons that is better equipped to face the future, especially in dealing with the challenges of restoration and renewal, with which the next Parliament will have to grapple. I note that all members of the Committee have signed the motion, which creates a welcome opportunity for the House to move forwards in harmony, which many people would not have believed possible last summer. I hope and believe that we will grasp that opportunity with open arms.

Turning to the substance of the report, the Committee’s proposals fall into three broad categories: the role of the Clerk; shared services; and a reformed Commission. I want to deal with each of them in turn.

On the Committee’s proposals on the Clerk and chief executive of the House, you noted in your statement in September, Mr Speaker, that there have been persuasive arguments for splitting the two roles for some time. Given the increasing complexity of the House’s administration and the imminent changes facing this place, not least the significant programme of restoration and renewal, there is an obvious need for more proactive management structures and accountability.

The Committee heard evidence that the current post of Clerk is “overloaded”, and that

“neither part of it is…given the attention it deserves.”

It therefore suggests splitting the two roles to ensure that the House administration is

“better led and more capable of delivering responsive and effective services to Members, staff and the public.”

It proposes that the Clerk of the House will no longer be the chief executive; the new post of director general is central to the report’s recommendations. I must say that I strongly agree with the report’s conclusions on that crucial point.

The proposal to replace the current Management Board with an executive committee, chaired by the new director general, will ensure more experienced and professional management of this place, and is much to be welcomed. I emphasise that such a statement is not intended in any way as a criticism of any current or former post holder; it is a statement of reality as the House faces the task of dealing with increasingly complex management challenges, whether the restoration and renewal programme, or the modernisation of House services while delivering significant savings.

[Mark Tami]

As my hon. Friend says, there is an absolutely huge task before us and the next Parliament to deal with the physical structure, but that must be done in a culture where we look to save money. We need a very professional person in place. I have nothing against the Clerk—the Clerks do an excellent job—but it is a different role.

[Ms Eagle]

I have long believed the same thing. I welcome the fact that after the intense look at the evidence that the Governance Committee subjected itself to before Christmas, it came to a very similar conclusion. It is an obvious conclusion. If we can get the changes right, we will all look back at this as a turning point in the professionalism and effectiveness of the House service.

Devolution (Scotland Referendum)

Mark Tami Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Paul Murphy]

I do not accept that for one second. The biggest threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom would have been for the yes campaign to win the Scottish referendum. I am saying not that the yes campaign was insincere but that I did not agree with it. On the following Friday morning, the Prime Minister effectively said, “Thank you very much, Scotland. You are now still part of the United Kingdom.” He then went on for the rest of that speech to talk about the West Lothian question, which struck me as extremely unusual. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) quite rightly referred to the fact that the Union itself is threatened by this constant sniping about the so-called great advantage enjoyed by Welsh, Northern Ireland or Scottish Members of Parliament. English Members make up 85% of this House of Commons. They can swamp all the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Members put together.

I know of no country that has a system in which there can be either first or second-class Members of the federal or central legislature. Spain, for example, has an asymmetric system of devolution, but Members representing the Basque country or Catalonia, which have highly developed systems of devolution, have the same rights as those representing other parts of Spain. The reality is that we cannot separate Members of Parliament from the mandate on which they were elected.

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

I represent a border constituency. Although health is devolved in Wales, our children’s hospital and our heart hospital are in the north-west of England. Neurosurgery for my constituents is done in the north-west of England. I have a view on behalf of the people I represent about what happens in the English health service.

[Paul Murphy]

Of course, and my hon. Friend should therefore be able to vote on matters affecting the hospitals in the English health service that most of his constituents go to.

I am fortunate enough to have seven general elections under my belt. I lost the first—quite rightly, too—which was for a seat in the west of England. Nevertheless, I would have been elected on the same mandate for the constituency of Wells in Somerset as I then was for my Welsh constituency in six successive general elections. I am a British Member of Parliament who happens to represent a Welsh constituency. I am therefore a Member of this United Kingdom Parliament in exactly the same way as any other Member representing one of the 650 seats.

I hope that the Leader of the House, when his Cabinet Committee meets to discuss these matters, will consider the constitutional mess there could be after a general election. When the leader of a party who has the potential to become Prime Minister goes to the palace, the Queen will ask, “Have you a majority and a mandate in the United Kingdom?”, and they will say, “Yes, Ma’am.” Then she will have to ask, “Have you a majority in England?”, because we would have a separate system in the House of Commons in order to deal with matters for which we have all been elected. I was elected on a mandate that included dealing with the English health service and education system, so long as it is a British Parliament that represents people in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. I think that there is an enormous danger.

The Leader of the House said that the issue of English laws being dealt with by English MPs is simple, but it is not. We have been dealing with that for 30 or 40 years, even before devolution in 1998. The Leader of the House will remember, as an historian, that in the 1960s a former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, Peter Thorneycroft—he represented the Welsh seat of Monmouth—said clearly that there cannot be two classes of Members of Parliament. Some years later, in the ’70s, the Kilbrandon commission said that regardless of what legislative assemblies are set up, British Members of Parliament must all have the same duties, responsibilities and rights.