Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Meg Hillier and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Wadworth is a very well-known west country brewer. I used to live not very far from a tied pub in Wadworth’s capable hands, and it is a distinguished company that serves fine products. However, I must tell my hon. Friend that, while VAT is a matter for the Chancellor, the British Business Bank is offering £12.2 billion of finance to more than 96,000 small and medium-sized businesses. On 20 July my predecessor introduced a new iteration of the recovery loans scheme, which helps smaller businesses to get loans and other kinds of finance up to £2 million per business, and the Government have reversed the national insurance rise, saving small businesses £4,200 on average. The energy bill relief scheme, which ought to get Royal Assent later today, will secure businesses over the winter, and there will be a review; it is one of the most generous schemes in the world and has been copied by foreign Governments.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Businesses in my constituency, including some of the fabulous small breweries, are struggling with the extra paperwork they now have to fill in in order to export to the European Union. The Business Secretary was a great exponent of Brexit, but even he must acknowledge that it is causing a huge burden to businesses and seriously affecting their profitability.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I look forward to the hon. Lady’s supporting the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, which is coming later today and will get rid of lots and lots of dreadful EU regulations that are such a terrible burden on businesses. Is it not wonderful, Mr Speaker, that our socialist friends at last have this glorious zeal for deregulation? It is something we on the Conservative Benches have supported since the time of Noah.

Restoration and Renewal of the Palace of Westminster

Debate between Meg Hillier and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 20th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

May I begin with the point mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) and by you, Mr Deputy Speaker: our mutual friend, Mike Weatherley, whose death was sadly reported today? He and I coincided—we were elected to Parliament at the same time—and he was a friend to every Member of this House. He was a kindly, good, decent, hard-working person. We send our deepest sympathies to his family and pray for the repose of his soul.

This has indeed been an excellent debate. I am grateful to everyone who participated, particularly the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), who has taken a very constructive and thoughtful approach to this matter. I think that we can work together, because it is one of those occasions where there is much more agreement than perhaps there appears to be on the surface. I will try to go through that and, at the same time, try to respond to all the contributions that have been made.

First, let me record my gratitude to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) for representing us on the Sponsor Body, for the work that he is doing, and for the extremely measured and thoughtful approach that he characteristically takes, pointing out to us that ultimately we will have to make choices. We will have to decide on what we want, to consider phasing, and to work out how much is renewal and how much is straight restoration. This will be fundamental to how the scheme is costed in the end.

I also thank my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who unfortunately is not in her place for the wind-ups. Given that she was the Leader of the House, she knows where this programme began and piloted it through its beginning stages very successfully. She made some important points about recognising that the work has to be done. That is fundamental. There is nobody who disagrees with that at all. The work needs to be done, and it needs to be done as soon as is practicable. There has been absolutely no delay in my period as Leader of the House. Indeed, I would argue the reverse.

Interestingly, my right hon. Friend gave an example of the stone falling on to the car of our right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General. That was not at the Palace; it was at Norman Shaw. That is why the works that we are doing have to be phased, and the work on Norman Shaw is taking place. I can tell the House that the plans for Norman Shaw are under way and the proposals are being made, and, as we are not now intending effectively to bulldoze Richmond House, they are going ahead faster. The planning permission went in, I think, in March and the work on Norman Shaw North should have its own decant in December 2021, with external works commencing in January 2022 and completion of the project in October 2025.

I have to tell the House that if we were continuing with the Richmond House programme, were waiting for that to happen and had not used Richmond House as the decant option for Norman Shaw, we would not even have started on Norman Shaw until 2025, let alone completed it. I must therefore reject the idea that things have not been happening.

Derby Gate, which of course creates some of the space for people moving out of Norman Shaw, will see people moving into it on 31 July this year. The preliminary works are taking place, and they are taking place faster because we have been trying to get the scheme under control. That is the second part of the work. The first part was to recognise that it needed to be done, but the second part was to look at the cost.

When I became Leader of the House, in one of my early meetings on restoration and renewal, it was suggested to me—this is not a formal forecast—that the cost range was likely to be £10 billion to £20 billion. That is ridiculous. It is not an amount that even those of us who are most committed to the project think is reasonable. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) said in his excellent speech that the figures for Richmond House had risen to £1.6 billion. I knew that the combined cost of moving the two Chambers was £1.5 billion, but my right hon. Friend was suggesting £1.6 billion just for Richmond House.

The right hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), as always, made a thoughtful contribution in which he spoke about decant. My opposition to decant has never been decant per se; it has always been a means to an end on cost. We were getting schemes that were so ridiculously expensive that one had to push back and say, “Surely there is a better and cheaper way of doing it.” Whether we can get it down to the £46 million suggested by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough, I am not certain, but £1.6 billion is not proper stewardship of public funds.

[Meg Hillier]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about cost, but we of course do not know what the cost is until the business case comes through, and I think that needs to be clear. Is he really suggesting that if we do the work around us, that will be cheaper than if we move out and do it in one hit and then come back?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I have not begun to suggest that, and I am very glad that the hon. Lady has intervened on me, because the figures given by the Public Accounts Committee on the £127 million of running costs that we are expending are not very well explained in the Committee’s report. If she wants to explain them, I would be delighted to give way.

[Meg Hillier]

The figures quoted are from the National Audit Office, and the full details are in the National Audit Office’s work. They are then simply quoted in the Public Accounts Committee report. It is National Audit Office work that is done to get those figures in the report.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Those figures seem to relate to the £44 million spent on the Northern Estate project, the £24.6 million for Canon Row, the £15.9 million for fire safety, the £12.6 million for the Elizabeth Tower and the £4.8 million for IT, almost all of which will continue regardless of how R and R is done. Therefore I am concerned about the impression being given by this figure that there is a massive increase in cost because we have not yet moved out. I do not think that is accurate, but if the hon. Lady would like to give more elaboration on the figures, I would find it very helpful.

I have tried to look for further details to understand what is being quoted in that £127 million figure that was mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire and alluded to by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier). I think it is important to get an understanding that a lot of the costs we are being told are extra are actually preliminary, because we are getting on with the work to get things ready.

There is the crucial work—a number of people have mentioned Notre Dame—on fire safety. We should bear in mind that the fire safety work has been tested and completed, with the exception of the Victoria Tower, in the past few months, and includes: 7,112 automatic fire detection devices; 1,364 locations for fire stopping compartmentation, dividing the Palace into 16 compartments; 4,126 sprinkler heads in the basement of the Palace, so the risk that we have heard about of a conflagration from the basement is very, very significantly reduced; and the 8 miles of pipe that I have referred to before.

It is really important to understand that a lot of work is already going on and ties in with the outline business case, which is being carried out to schedule by the Sponsor Body and the Delivery Authority. That is the right way to proceed, because a number of people have mentioned the Elizabeth Tower, including the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch, and what went wrong there with the cost going up from £29 million to £80 million. The key thing we learn from that is that we need to do the outline business case in detail.

I actually think that had we said to the British people, “To redo Big Ben, a national symbol, would cost us £80 million”, the British people would have said that that was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I think the criticism came because the expense rose as the process unfolded. We want to ensure that that does not happen with restoration and renewal and that we get a figure that is realistic.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Absolutely, but within limits. The £10 billion to £20 billion would, I think, test the patience of most of our voters. That is why I do not think that this House should go blindly into approving or delegating this scheme without knowing precisely what the cost is. This debate is therefore important, because the outline business case is being worked on as we speak. Those involved have begun the survey work, and they are getting on with it, which is really important. But if they come back to us in early 2023 and say, “The cost is going to be £10 billion to £20 billion.” there will be a vote in this House to approve it or not. I have a nasty feeling that if it is at that level, we will not approve it, and yet the work must be done. So now is the time to give the message that we are willing to accept a little inconvenience and to have more restoration than renewal, and that while we have to ensure that disability access is done properly, we recognise that the last percentage of disability access is the most expensive. There are therefore compromises that we will be called upon to make.

[Meg Hillier]

On the Elizabeth Tower—I alluded to this, but perhaps I should quote directly from the NAO report—Parliament’s internal auditors identified, among other things,

“inadequate project governance; high turnover of project staff; and poor cost estimation.”

That really encapsulates the things that we do not want to get wrong with this project. It will cost a lot of money, but we need to be sure that we have had proper governance and proper cost destination and that we are presenting to the public a figure that is real, even though it will not be cheap.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am absolutely at one with the hon. Lady, and I am grateful for that helpful intervention. That is why the outline business case is being worked on now. We hope to have some preliminary idea about it early next year, with the vote on it in 2023.

Let me return to some of the individual contributions. My neighbour and right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) emphasised the symbolism, the need to get on with things and the stonework. It is important that, under the Act, the Commission—I can assure the House that the Commission is very aware of this—is allowed to carry out repairs before the R and R body takes over. We have scaffolding up, so it seems sensible to try to do repairs where we can. There is no point in having scaffolding, as it currently is, just acting like the slips, waiting to see what catches come its way, although of stonework rather than cricket balls. So I agree with what my right hon. Friend said.

The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) seemed to want to become Old Father Thames, which was a rather charming way of suggesting how we should rebuild the Palace. My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes) emphasised the limits on public money, as did the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). He also encouraged, as did many others, UK-wide working and opportunities, and pressed for answers on timescales, which we will get in the outline business case.

I find myself in a very high level of agreement with my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who pointed out that this is a place of work. Although it is nice that tourists come to see it, that must not interfere with its work as a legislature, and if we need to do building work in August, it cannot be open to the public in that time. Getting that priority right is very important.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) said, “Get on with it!” I hope that I have persuaded him that we are getting on with it, and that is what everybody wants to do. As I have set out, the preliminary works are very much already happening.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southend West wanted a date for the Elizabeth Tower, and I will give him a date. I am told that the bells will ring in early 2022. Now, “early”, when used by the civil service, is one of those things that I have learned about in my brief time in Government, and early 2022 could mean some time in December, but it would be early December. However, there is a better promise, which is that the scaffolding will be down by summer 2022—“summer”, of course, is an equally elastic term. What particular point in summer, I do not know, but we are almost there. The bells were being tested this morning, and it was really rather wonderful to hear them—it was uplifting. My hon. Friend made the crucial point, which was so helpful to the argument, that the Richmond House planning would have delayed us until 2027, which would have been an added complication and problem with the whole programme.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) brought his own experience to bear in a very interesting way, and talked about how we look after customers. He said that we do not inconvenience them, but that we sometimes have to recognise the need to keep going regardless.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) made an inspiring and sparkling speech. She was against gold-plating, as am I, and did not want a blank cheque in these economic circumstances. She reminded us of Churchill’s view of how buildings shaped our democracy. She also talked about what it would look like to our constituents if we decided to do things in a sort of Liberace way—I am not very keen on doing things in a Liberace way. [Interruption.] I am being mobbed out from the Front Bench by the Deputy Chief Whip. As he has 330 votes in his pocket, I must not ever dare to disagree with him; otherwise, Government business might become problematic.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey) mentioned opportunities and the need for there to be a plan for jobs. I think his basic plea was for every member of his constituency to be employed on the parliamentary estate. He referred to apprenticeships. Apprenticeships will be important and will have a long-running benefit for the heritage of this country because the stonemasons who are trained here will then be stonemasons who work on our great cathedrals and other heritage buildings.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe) mentioned the symbolism of this place and told us very clearly—I think this is the right way to put it—that we cannot duck the question. If we duck the question, we will end up grousing, to carry the bird thought through. But that is what we are doing now: we are not ducking the question.

I was delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) spoke. I fear that even now, nearly 18 months after the general election, one’s heart still leaps at the thought that Sedgefield is a Conservative seat. Leaving that little point aside, he mentioned what an iconic institution this is with its 1 million visitors. Follow the cash, as his old boss used to say to him, is what we must definitely be doing. The important point is that it is very hard to future-proof in terms of technology, because we think we are future-proofing but the technology goes off in some other direction that we did not think about. So we have to be open to a variety of opportunities.

This is a long-term project and it will come at very considerable cost to the taxpayer. The solutions we arrive at must therefore be the best option for the preservation of the Palace of Westminster and in the public interest, prioritising value for money. This is fundamentally a parliamentary project. I cannot remember who said that actually it is a fundamentally House of Commons project, because the symbolism of this House as the democratic House is what people think about when they look at the Palace of Westminster. I have the greatest admiration and respect for their lordships, but when people look at this palace, they think of the home of the world’s oldest democracy. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset made that fundamentally important point. It is a parliamentary project. It is a House of Commons project. We are the ones who are accountable to taxpayers.

I have set out my Government’s views and other hon. and right hon. Members have set out theirs. I am confident that the restoration and renewal programme team will listen to those carefully, and in the coming months the Sponsor Body will engage with MPs and peers to seek their views on how the proposals should develop. It is vital that parliamentarians give their time, energy and expertise to this process so that collectively we shape a programme that safeguards both the Palace of Westminster and taxpayers’ money, and will make St Peter proud.

Restoration and Renewal

Debate between Meg Hillier and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 16th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier]

Or the garden bridge, indeed. Only £30 million of taxpayers’ money went through the Department for Transport to the garden bridge, so that was a relatively cheap proposal by the current Prime Minister. We need to be careful: it is very easy, and very much a tactic of the current incumbent at No. 10, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), to throw out a random thought and let everyone talk about that, and meanwhile we stop talking about the real issue: that this place needs to be sorted, and it needs to be sorted now.

I turn to the Leader of the House again and ask him who is responsible if someone gets injured or hurt. Who would be responsible for asbestos poisoning in this place? I think it would end up being the Clerk of the House and the corporate body of the House of Commons. That means that the Leader of the House is sitting there and everyone is waiting for the musical chairs to stop, hoping that they will not be standing at the moment when a disaster happens in this House.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I can clarify that. The Clerk of the House is the responsible officer, and he takes his responsibility enormously seriously. He has made it absolutely clear that, if he thought there were a risk to people in this Palace, he would insist that the place closed.

[Meg Hillier]

That means that we have to be responsible for the Clerk of the House’s sake as well, so he is not left holding the problem if something were to go wrong. We had a fire only a few weeks ago.

We need to decide and get on with it—we have decided; there is a statute in place—and we need to make sure that we get on with costing up the preferences and let the Sponsor Body get on and do its work. We cannot keep adding options or we will just build the cost and build in delay. We cannot keep changing our mind.

I am a patient and reasonable woman, I think, but I am angry at the prospect that we could be one of the last generations of MPs to stand in this place and that my schoolchildren from Hackney could be the last generation to come to visit, because if we keep dodging the issue, we will have a pile of ash and rubble, not a beautiful world heritage site. We have to avoid that. We have to protect the people who work here. We need to get on with it.

Business of the House

Debate between Meg Hillier and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 25th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this point, and as a former leader of Westminster City Council, she knows how important it is. I am not convinced that extending the congestion charge to 10 o’clock at night will help the theatres when they do reopen. It will be a big disincentive to people coming into the centre of London to go to the theatre—typical of the socialist Mayor of London—but the Government are taking steps to help the artistic community, as we are helping the whole of the economy. The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has acknowledged that social distancing makes staging performances exceptionally difficult for theatres and that the industry will need a different approach from other sectors. He is consulting industry, medical experts and advisers in the hope that a solution can be found, but if I may say so, the show must go on and the Government must support the show going on, as they have been with the measures that they have introduced so far.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I unusually find myself in accord with the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) in calling for a debate in Government time about how well their guidance on lifting lockdown is working. The Leader of the House referred to pubs reopening. In my constituency, they have stayed open, selling alcohol off the premises, and this has caused havoc, with people drunk, urinating and defecating in our parks, causing a huge challenge for our police and park wardens and a huge cost to the taxpayer to keep on top of it. It is time that we had a proper discussion about the practicality of many of the measures that the Government are proposing in order to ensure that they work for everybody.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I think the changes that are being made have the great virtue that they are not going to be compulsion, but they are advice. In their good wisdom, the British people can determine what they do, subject to the very clear guidance that the Government are giving. The restoration of our ancient freedoms that have never previously been so restricted is clearly the proper approach for the Government to be taking. As for a debate, the consideration of a procedural motion followed by all stages of the Business and Planning Bill will cover many of the issues that the hon. Lady is concerned about, so there will be chance to debate this on Monday.

Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme

Debate between Meg Hillier and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I believe that the proposal that the Government have put before the House balances the constitutional needs and the protection of the individual complainants, but I make no criticism of those who have come to a different conclusion. I absolutely share his concern not only that we must ensure that people are not discouraged, but that we must all—in our own way, when we can and when it comes to us—encourage people to use these systems, because they are there to protect people who are vulnerable. That is very important.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The tone of this debate is in the right direction, but I really do have concerns about a bully pulpit being used in this Chamber. Even if people are not named, there will be gossip and innuendo about who is being referred to. I hate to refer to this, Madam Deputy Speaker, but a predecessor of Mr Speaker, in a published book, named Members of this House. If people of position and power do that, what confidence will people have if we still have an open debate in this Chamber, even if people cannot be named?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady makes a very fair point. I think the answer is that not having a debate in this Chamber at the end of the process, subject to very strict rules, does not mean that people may not write books saying things that they should not say or that they may not use other opportunities within parliamentary privilege. It is the question of constraining what can be done within parliamentary privilege that is essential, which is why I believe that something that is controlled and clearly set out in the rules is, on balance, preferable to trying to prevent this House from debating. However, I understand that others come to a different conclusion on what is a serious level of constitutional change because of past behaviour that has besmirched the name of this House and of politics and politicians generally.

Taken together, the provisions have the effect of acting decisively to uphold the spirit of our efforts towards culture change, while respecting the traditions and requirements of our parliamentary democracy. They aim to build the confidence of complainants by ensuring that these matters will be treated with the sensitivity and professionalism that they deserve. We simply have to give people who feel that they have been abused the confidence that they need to come forward. Adopting Dame Laura Cox’s recommendation by establishing the independent panel of experts will help us to do that. I commend the motions to the House.

Business of the House

Debate between Meg Hillier and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 4th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I understand that “Points West”, the programme in my constituency in Somerset and the region, is more watched, proportionately speaking, than “EastEnders”, which is an indication of how popular these programmes are and the local service that they provide. David Garmston, the local broadcaster in Somerset, is one of the most popular figures around. It is very important that local television is kept up. However, it is a matter for the BBC as to how it allocates resources, and this may be a subject worth raising in an Adjournment debate.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Leader of the House and I have more in common than he might want to believe, in that we are both traditionalists on how this House should operate, and I have missed the cut and thrust of debate. However, he is tin-eared and not following his own Government’s advice, which is to work at home if possible. Up and down the country, businesses and organisations are making massive compromises and working in different ways, yet he seems to think it is okay to exclude Members of this House from full participation and to put our constituents up and down the country at risk as we all come together, from all four corners of the UK, and then go back out again, while we are still at risk from this virus. Will he not reconsider and allow us to continue our good work but do it remotely?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Indeed we may have more in common than most people know; we were at Oxford together, and when I arrived the hon. Lady was a most distinguished officer of the Oxford Union, somebody I looked up to and continue to look up to as a distinguished figure. I followed in her footsteps and later became an officer of that same Oxford Union. However, I would deny the charge of “tin-earedness”; I think we are in line with what the country is doing. We are coming back to work because we could not do it properly while not being here. I would ask again: which of the important Bills do Opposition Members not want? Do they not want the Domestic Abuse Bill? Do they not want the Fire Safety Bill? Do they not want to stand up for our fishing communities with the Fisheries Bill? Do they not want the Northern Ireland legacy Bill? What is it that they wish to abandon? Which parts of our country do they wish to let down? We must come back because we have a job to do.

Business of the House

Debate between Meg Hillier and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 19th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I had not forgotten amendments. I believe there is a motion in my name to allow amendments to be tabled before Second Reading, but I cannot give the hon. Gentleman all the comfort he wants on the change of time limit.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Leader of the House and others have rightly talked about proper scrutiny of what the Government are doing, as rather highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). The Leader of the House was slightly disingenuous, if I may say so, when he talked about the Liaison Committee being delayed by this House. It was actually a power grab by the Government to impose a Chair from outside its membership that has caused the delay. Nevertheless, it is vital that that Committee is up and running, and it could be a hugely useful place for this House, if it had to shrink down its activities, to question Ministers directly and the Prime Minister about actions, especially if we are living under draconian legislation, which is likely to be passed next week. Will the Leader of the House give us some comfort on that issue?

On the point about the motion on Tuesday relating to appointments to the Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body, will we now finally see a group of professionals dealing with the northern estate and making sure that in the midst of this crisis, having had flood and pestilence, we do not see this place burned by fire as well?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

A great deal of work has been done on fire safety in this building, with measures implemented that will ensure that we are much better protected than we were. That is very important. People will notice that the state rooms in Speaker’s House are currently not usable because fire safety measures are being implemented, so that is taking place.

As regards the Liaison Committee, I think it would be a very novel constitutional development to think that it could replace the whole House, and I am not sure that that would be something that I would welcome.

Business of the House

Debate between Meg Hillier and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 13th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the work done by special constables is admirable. It is worth noting that the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), used to be a special constable and made an enormous contribution in that role. We are getting 20,000 extra police, but the special constables add to that. There will be a chance to raise the issue and to praise them and encourage more special constables to come forward in the debate on the police grant on Monday 24 February.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Yesterday, in Westminster Hall, more than 30 Members of Parliament raised concerns about our constituents who are living in properties with unsafe cladding. Many of them are mortgage prisoners. They are facing life-changing bills and are having to put their lives on hold. Is it not about time that the Government had a longer debate in this Chamber about the real, serious concerns, as the Government, hopefully, come up with a swift solution to deal with this problem?

European Union (Withdrawal)

Debate between Meg Hillier and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

For once, the right hon. Gentleman has made an error and over-promoted me, but I thank him for his distinctive comments.

There is a serious point here: we are a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. I take that judgment seriously, as I know do colleagues across the House. The Government do not have not have a majority and we are in uncharted constitutional territory, so it is absolutely right and proper that we exercise our judgment in the interests of the country to avoid, at the very least, a no-deal Brexit. For all the right hon. Gentleman’s talk, we must exercise that judgment, and that is what we are doing. It is entirely responsible.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am afraid that I disagree with the hon. Lady, and I must confess that I am astonished that she is not a right hon. Member. Something must have gone wrong with the Privy Council, of which I am now Lord President, for that not to be the case. [Interruption.] Oh, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) feels that he has also not been justly promoted; I am sorry.

Restoration and Renewal (Report of the Joint Committee)

Debate between Meg Hillier and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow so many erudite speeches, particularly that of the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). He is a former Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, and I have enormous respect for him, but I was puzzled to hear him say that he wanted quick action, but also that he did not want to make a decision tonight. He and I share a healthy scepticism of experts—someone does not get to chair the PAC without being able to challenge experts—and that is why the Committee considered the work of the Joint Committee of this House to assure ourselves and help to assure the House that its work was robust and thorough.

It is no accident that the Deputy Chair of that Committee, the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), 13 Select Committee Chairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) back my amendment (b) to motion No. 1. We regularly consider large projects and how they are managed. We routinely and regularly criticise Departments for their poor procurement, poor project management and poor contracting, and it is important that we get all that right. It is also important that we bottom out what we are trying to achieve right at the very beginning and that we work through the figures. We know that the Joint Committee did not draw up full and detailed costings, which would take a long time to get right, but its figures were robustly reached and were orders of magnitude of the cost. However, the costings are still pegged to 2014 prices, so let us not use them as though they are the actual figures. That is why further work needs to be done. It cannot be done unless we make a very clear decision tonight. That does not mean kicking it into the long grass; it means making a firm decision about the options. That is why I propose a decant, because we know that moving the project quickly, specifying it well and doing it over a short period of time will be a lot cheaper.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My concern is that the figures are not, in fact, robust—they are out by 16.5 feet in the proposals for Richmond House. We had hundreds of pages of consultants’ reports, and this key fact is wrong. If that key fact is wrong, how many other facts are wrong?

[Meg Hillier]

My Committee’s work did not particularly look at that aspect. We were looking at the refurbishment side. The hon. Gentleman sat on the Joint Committee and agreed its report. The National Audit Office assessed the robustness of the methodology used in that report—it did not do a full analysis, because such assurance is a very long job—and it assured us that the work was thorough and credible.

There was a sampling of some of the examples we have heard from other hon. Members tonight, and the costs were considered in order to extrapolate the indicative cost figure—the order of magnitude. The work of the Joint Committee was robust and thorough, as far as it could go, but until Members of this House make a decision, we cannot go into the full detail of the figures. That is why we need to make a decision.

The Palace of Westminster is, of course, a world heritage site, which means it comes under UNESCO rules. I have been in touch with Francesco Bandarin, UNESCO’s assistant director general for culture—I have copied our correspondence to the UK permanent delegation—and under UNESCO rules the UK Treasury is responsible for funding this building and making sure it is preserved as a world heritage site.

By December 2018 the Government have to provide information to UNESCO about their plans for this building, and in 2019—incidentally the year that we are expected to leave the European Union—we will also be on the world stage because UNESCO’s committee will consider the Government’s decisions and proposals and assess whether they are acceptable and will do enough to preserve this world heritage site.

As other hon. Members have said, it is not about us. It is about members of the public and the staff who work here, but this is also an internationally iconic building. Are we really saying that we are unable to make a decision tonight to ensure that we work up full costings and a full programme of work so that we can get on with the job, as the Public Accounts Committee concluded?

I have also seen correspondence from David Orr and Jennifer Wood, the external members of the Palace of Westminster restoration and renewal programme board, who wrote to David Natzler, the Clerk of the House, in March 2017 and last week to reiterate their “serious concerns” about the “continuing delay” in holding debates on this issue, so I congratulate the Leader of the House on ensuring that we had this debate today. They also say that

“the idea that the debates…will not be a Decision in Principle but instead would give approval to a shadow Sponsor Board and shadow Delivery Authority and commission them to study further options before bringing the matter back to Parliament”

is a matter of concern. They say that one of the motions

“envisages only essential work doing this Parliament followed by a further review before 2022 to consider the need for comprehensive works…We are dismayed by these developments and seriously concerned about the level of risk that is being tolerated.”

We have heard about the risks and safety issues, and it is a real concern to me that we must move forward. We cannot keep putting this into the long grass. We have to make a decision.

Let us be clear: we are a group of people who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, aspire to run the country. In doing that, we have to make decisions. We need to make a decision tonight about this building. Of course it is going to cost money but, let us face it, it is not as if the Treasury is going to give that money to something in my constituency—we cannot see such things as equivalents.

This building is at risk unless we make a decision. Let us move forward and get the full costings and the full programme of works so that we can get on with the job.