Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment

Steve Barclay Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Hiding in plain sight, but not discussed in this Chamber since the general election, is the spending of millions of pounds on the repair of this building, with Members expected to commit later this year to spending billions of pounds into the future. The lack of debate or any meaningful transparency comes despite the majority of Members of this House being newly elected last July. Instead, the detailed costs and any vote on options are being delayed until later this year—ironically, they will probably come at around the same time that the House is expected to vote on a Budget, which many people expect to include tax rises. Members of the House, and members of the public, might reasonably ask why the Leader of the House has not held any such debate since coming into office.

This issue speaks to a wider principle. Are decisions best formulated in private when some of the numbers remain uncertain, with reliance placed on internal controls and external advisers giving assurances, or is it better to have transparency—not least on an issue of great public interest? A lesson that, as a Minister, I learned from covid is that it is better to have transparency and an open debate about the trade-offs early than to hold discussions in secret and allow the benefit of hindsight after the event.

Supporting greater transparency has been a theme of my time in the House, whether in my initial four years on the Public Accounts Committee or when as a Minister I overruled official advice to disclose information to the National Audit Office during covid. Since being elected as Chair of the House’s Finance Committee, I have repeatedly raised concerns in private about the financial management of the House and the multibillion-pound restoration and renewal programme, but I feel it is necessary to raise these issues on the Floor of the House today.

Before doing so, I place on record my thanks to Mr Speaker, because I know he cares deeply about taxpayer value—an issue he has championed on many occasions. I want to reassure Members that I will not disclose any information I have received in my role as Chair of the Finance Committee or in a private capacity.

The crux of the issue is that there needs to be a complete reset of the R and R programme. The books need to be open to the public, and we need to bring the public into the debate about how we balance the needs of a world heritage site with modern security, accessibility —for example, for those with a disability—and value for money. Updated costs need to be presented. Currently, millions of pounds are being spent working up multiple options, despite our now being in the fifth year of this work. Indeed, those options are gold-plated, often based on decisions taken by Members who are no longer in the House. There is remarkably little visibility of this issue.

The most recent costs presented go back to 2022, and even then the cheapest option was £8.6 billion to £13.8 billion, with others costing more, and that is without inflation and with no other significant additions. Those costs exclude the work Members will see on the northern estate, which is not part of the R and R programme, yet the public would associate the two, not least because that work is a key part of any decant. We also know that there are precedents for costs increasing massively. If we take the example of the Elizabeth Tower— the most recent example in this House—the costs started at £29 million and finished at £89 million, which is a 209% increase. If we look at this morning’s news, we can see how the costs of Sizewell C have increased.

There are known risks in plain sight. In its first report, the National Audit Office cited changes to programmes as a key risk, yet we know that the sponsor body set up at the start has been scrapped. We know that we started with one option and then went up to two and then three, but with A and B options, so in essence we have four options. Who knows, but there could be a fifth on the way.

The governance is opaque. Let me give the House an example. The key body that oversees the programme has met only once this year and only twice since the last annual report. However, if we look at what is in the public domain, the first paragraph of the annual report says that

“the R&R Client Board and R&R Programme Board will mean sufficiently robust and detailed information will be available to the new Parliament to support decisions on the way forward for R&R.”

We have not debated it once, and the governing committee has met only once this calendar year.

I am conscious of the time, so I will canter through some of the other issues. In short, security is often presented as a reason for not being transparent, but I would draw Members’ attention to the very welcome intervention by Baroness Smith in the House of Lords in her exchange with Lord Hayward about the Carriage Gates, which cost £9.6 million. I am told that they still do not work particularly well. Just last week, this House debated a mistake that was made by an official in the Ministry of Defence, with Members complaining about both the cost to the taxpayer and whether that was covered up. How confident are Members that no similar examples exist?

I simply ask Members: are they aware of the costs of the work on the northern estate, of the trade-offs and how they are being shaped, or of the cost of any delay? How confident are they that when they are asked to make such decisions alongside a Budget, they will have the information they need?

I will finish with one final example. Just as with High Speed 2, hiding something in plain sight involves producing lots of brochures and lots of literature. Colleagues can see that one of the recent quarterly updates states on page 4:

“R&R Surveys…ONGOING…

Budget…ONGOING…

Develop House of Commons…Plans…ONGOING…

Costed proposals…ONGOING…

Invitation to tender…NOT STARTED”.

It includes no meaningful information. Indeed, the annual report has financial information only on the final two pages, pages 29 and 30.

This is not a new issue. Lord Morse, in his 2022 report, noted:

“Parliament has a historically poor reputation for its contract management and commercial acumen.”

I believe issues should be shared with the public, the trade-offs discussed, and Members of this House, particularly new Members, given sight of these issues. I have called repeatedly in private for there to be greater debate. Today, I want to do so on the Floor of the House.