Palace of Westminster: Restoration and Renewal

Debate between Valerie Vaz and Jo Churchill

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you as Chair, Mr Flello. So did I. It is very good for us, I understand.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and the other members of the Joint Committee, who worked very hard in the lead-up to this debate. I also congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Hon. Members will know what my hon. Friend is like: he is blustering and blarneying and very frustrated about this, so it is great that he has had the opportunity to secure the debate. He is right to do that, because the report was published in September 2016.

Hon. Members on both sides of the House have been talking to me, and it goes without saying that all hon. Members are concerned about the immediacy and urgency of the work. They are also concerned about costs, and they note that other events and priorities may be occupying the Government’s mind. However, we come to this debate with a background of reports. We have the very good report from the hon. Members who served on the Joint Committee, and the Public Accounts Committee is also considering this matter, although it may not report until March. We also have the Treasury Committee report. Without doubt, whether for engineers, architects or whatever, the costings from September will be different even from the costings now. The hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara) is right to be concerned about that issue. My view is that the debate will clarify all that. The important issue for our side is that hon. Members have a say. That is the key thing. All these questions and concerns can be aired with new information—against the background of the information from all those reports.

The right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) mentioned Canada. I had the opportunity, with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, to visit Canada. Quite by chance, we were taken to the mock chamber that the parliamentarians there had and, in the best tradition of “Blue Peter”, I have here one that I made earlier—a picture of it. Obviously, it cannot be read into Hansard, but it does give a nice flavour of what can be done, if hon. Members want to see it later. It is a beautiful chamber. All of us may feel very comfortable debating in this Chamber now, but if we were given a chamber in the Department of Health that had desks, we would realise how good it would be to debate like a proper, modern Parliament and we might even not want to come back to the old Chamber. Canada’s temporary chamber is not just in a courtyard. It is a beautiful building and, engineering-wise, it shows what can be done—a visit to Canada might be in order.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda always reminds me that there are no options; he says, “Don’t tell people there are options. There is only one option.” The main thing is that Members should have a say. I am pleased to hear that some of the work has already been done. I was going to raise the issue of asbestos in the Chamber; again, not sitting in September might be an option to deal with that. The subject of fire has been constantly raised.

[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. The House has a register of known asbestos, but a large body of evidence suggests that asbestos is riddled throughout the work that has been done. There are 98 risers in this building and all are thought to hold asbestos. The health and safety and fire aspects of why we should decant are compelling to me. The fact is that we are allowing the general public and our staff to work where there is a chance of asbestos and silica dust. If anybody has seen someone die of mesothelioma, they will know that it is not a pretty sight. We have no option, on those grounds alone.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I have to say, gently, that it is the tradition to be in the room at the start of the debate, but I take on board that, particularly given her previous role, she understands the medical reasons—I have a cough today and it is difficult to breathe—and she mentioned the terrible condition of mesothelioma.

I want to knock another myth on the head. Again, I am not an architect or an engineer but Members should understand that although we may be moving out of the building, we will not actually be moving off the estate. We will still be around and will not be leaving the parliamentary estate. I am pleased that the work on the cast-iron roof is also being done.

The Joint Committee was tasked to look at this, and has fulfilled its remit, but Members are right to be concerned about costs. We had the same debate when the Labour Government decided they wanted to put money into the Olympics and there was a lot of chuntering that it was going to be too costly. In the end, sadly, there was a change of Government and we did not get the benefit of how brilliant the Olympics were and how, under the Olympic Delivery Authority, everything was done to time and, to a certain extent, cost. The hiccup, as the Deputy Leader knows, was the security—we finally had to get public service in, rather than G4S. We need to be careful that Members are not excluded from the delivery authority. The key point for me is that Members should decide and the only way they can do that is if we have the debate. The one main thing I would ask the Deputy Leader is that we have the debate as soon as possible, based on the information that the other Committees are looking at.

A building is only a building with people in it. It is nothing without people in it. Whatever we decide to do, and if there is only one option, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda suggests, we need to take that decision. However, we need to take an informed decision because, in the end, MPs are always blamed when things go wrong and, rightly, we will take responsibility for that. We need to do this on an informed basis, with everybody abiding by the result.

Unaccompanied Children

Debate between Valerie Vaz and Jo Churchill

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Jo Churchill]

I could not agree more. We have to ensure that we are not a magnet. The trade is absolutely immoral. We need to ensure that handling procedures for all vulnerable people are speedy and timely. We need biometric machinery so that people are registered where they arrive. Vulnerable children have no one to ensure that they are looked after on this journey. An increasing concern is that money given to Frontex is not being spent correctly. Improved monitoring is a must.

Young single people are at particular risk on all parts of their journey. As my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) said, they continue to be vulnerable once they are here, and we have a duty from the time they set sail. Taking people from camps in north Africa and Syria helps to show that assistance is there. A friend whose family comes from Lesbos said:

“It is not like an earthquake over in minutes. This is never-ending, like living on a motorway with daily car crashes. Some of the islanders can’t sleep and see boats when they are not there.”

The Greek people are tired, but I worry about having debates on numbers when we do not know the extent of the issue, when processing is not being done properly and when facts are scarce. Those things are critical. The amendment this week talks of 3,000 children, but as a mother, I have to ask: what about the 3,001st? Understanding situations properly is the key to sorting them, and we must ensure that councils are helped to provide the right support. Processing people quickly and decently is imperative, which brings me to the “jungle”. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell) said, we need to do the same here. Keeping people in squalor is no deterrent; it merely dehumanises. The French authorities need to speed up decision making, ensuring that reunification of family members happens swiftly, if appropriate. To do the right thing should be possible in Europe.

It is being recognised that we in this country are making decisions more swiftly. That is to be welcomed, but I, like many other Members here, want to see more. In the coming days, I look forward to the Minister, who has met with us on many occasions, meeting Save the Children. It can provide up-to-date local information, but I want to know what more we can do in practice to assist the processing, both in technical and influential terms. I want to make sure that vulnerable people get the help they acutely require. We have heard fine words today; please let us see some action.

[Valerie Vaz (in the Chair)]

We have five minutes left for the last two speakers.