Restoration and Renewal (Report of the Joint Committee)

Debate between Meg Hillier and Stewart Hosie

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

May I first congratulate the officials of the House on all the work that they have done on the various aspects of R and R? We think that it has been first class. It has been detailed and considered. Anything that my hon. Friends or I say today is in no way a criticism of the professional way in which the House staff have gone about their work. That includes the recent issuing of the client advisory services contracts not least to ensure that the building is safe for the thousands of staff and visitors who are here every single day, and to minimise the risk of catastrophic failure. As it is a House matter, it may well be that this House concludes that an expensive restoration of this royal palace, in whatever guise, is the right thing to do because some argue that this is the historic home of the UK Parliament. If that is the decision, although I may not agree with it, I will certainly respect it.

My criticism of the motions before us today and the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) is twofold. First, it is flawed that we are not even prepared to consider, on cost-effective grounds, the delivery of a new Parliament on a new site. My second criticism is that we are prepared to proceed without taking this once in a 160 or 170-year opportunity genuinely to modernise the way we work.

On my first point, the Leader of the House has outlined a delivery body to investigate the three options before us: a full decant, a partial decant, and a full decant while retaining a foothold. Motion No. 2 clearly includes a cost-benefit analysis of each option. But if we are to agree to the creation of a delivery body with a sponsor board doing a cost-benefit analysis of these three options, surely we should do the same cost-benefit analysis of the delivery of a new Parliament on a new site.

[Meg Hillier]

The hon. Gentleman makes a point that has been repeated a number of times in this debate, which is that all three options—in his case, four—should be worked up. It costs a lot of money to work up options to the level that Members are asking. We need to consider that, which is one of the reasons why I am proposing a clear decision tonight.

[Stewart Hosie]

I respect that the hon. Lady is proposing a clear decision. The problem is that the decision that she is proposing and the other options on the table explicitly exclude even an analysis of what we believe would be the most cost-effective grounds.

Under any of the other motions before us, we would end up in the ludicrous position of agreeing to proceed on the basis of a decision to rule out that which might be the most cost-effective option. At the same time, we are expected to allow a delivery body to reinvestigate three options or proceed with a single one, when those options were priced in 2014. Those costs may now be wildly inaccurate. We will be abandoning the opportunity that a new Parliament building might offer.

Depending on the option chosen by the delivery body mentioned in the motion of the Leader of the House, and given that the timescale for completion could be anywhere from eight to 40 years, we may also be in a position—although we cannot be certain—in which what appears to be a sensible or cost-effective decision today looks absolutely bonkers in a few years’ time when the floor is up, the roof is off and people look behind the oak panelling. In short, to prohibit the delivery body from even doing a cost-benefit analysis of a new Parliament building is short-sighted. This is important because when the new build option was ruled out in 2012, it was after a pre-feasibility study had been completed, and that study suggested that a new parliamentary building might cost £800 million. I understand that updating those figures for inflation, using the tender price index from 2012, and applying a 22% optimism bias would still give an updated net capital investment figure of £1.4 billion. That figure may be completely wrong—it may be double, treble or quadruple that—but for goodness’ sake, if the starting point is lower than all the other options, surely we are duty bound to have the delivery body investigate it.

On the second point of concern, namely that of modernisation, I very much support the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). We simply must have seats for every single Member in both the temporary and permanent Chambers. The only argument I have ever heard against the modernisation proposal—we heard it earlier today—is that Members can accost a Minister if they happen to be in the same voting Lobby. I have never had any difficulty contacting a Minister or their Parliamentary Private Secretary if the situation is urgent, and I have never once heard that criticism raised by those in the Scottish Parliament, where electronic voting is the norm.

My hon. Friend made some fun of this issue earlier, but let me add a little weight to it. The 10 votes we had on 17 January took a combined total of 1,200 man, woman or people hours—two hours per MP—which is time that could have been far better used. In the Scottish Parliament, those votes would have taken 10 minutes.

Given that neither of the motions in the name of the Leader of the House or the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch accommodates our ambitions, we are unable to support any of them.