Finances of the House of Commons

Viscount Thurso Excerpts

Thursday 21st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes the medium-term financial plan for the House of Commons as set out in Appendix A to the First Report from the Finance and Services Committee, HC 754; endorses the intention of the Finance and Services Committee to recommend to the House of Commons Commission a House of Commons: Administration Estimate of £200.6 million, which includes funding for the proposed Education Centre; further notes that, in line with the target for the Savings Programme, this is consistent with a reduction of 17 per cent in real terms since 2010-11; and further endorses the intention of the Finance and Services Committee to recommend to the Members Estimate Committee a House of Commons: Members Estimate of £33.3 million.

I am extremely grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate. Last year was Members’ first opportunity to have a substantial debate on the finances of the administration of the House and their own budget, and this year’s debate very much follows the same procedure. The Finance and Services Committee, which I have the honour of chairing, has produced its report on next year’s estimate and is proposing to advise the Commission that the estimate be £200.6 million. This debate is an opportunity for Members to discuss the report and the related documents, to consider the advice before it is made to the Commission and, I hope, to approve it.

Following a change to Standing Orders this year, the Committee now has a duty to advise on the Members estimate, and I want to make clear the difference between the two estimates. The substantial amounts required to look after Members, in terms of pay, office costs and so on, are dealt with by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority in the IPSA estimate. The remaining Members estimate deals with the small number of costs left over after most of the costs went to IPSA, and they are such things as IT provision, stationery, liability insurance coverage and the occasional pension liability that occurs as a result of movements in the bond price within the Members contributory pension scheme.

I would like to begin by paying tribute to the staff who serve us. We have the good fortune to be looked after, in all areas of the House, by very dedicated and extremely professional staff who do their utmost to ensure that we can do our work smoothly and efficiently. They often work in difficult circumstances and for long hours, mirroring our work patterns, and are run by a management who do everything possible to help us in everything we seek to do. I am therefore happy to pay that personal tribute, but I believe it is one that Members in all parts of the House would be happy to pay too.

I should like briefly to set out some wider points about the estimate and then make a small number of points that I believe should be addressed individually. At the start of this Parliament, the Commission decided that, in a time of considerable austerity, it was right to have a look at the costs of running the House service. During 2010-11, a rigorous examination was made of expenditure, based on the principle that we should be able to do whatever was necessary for our proper work as scrutineers of Government, legislators and promoters of our constituents’ interests, but that, within that principle, we should seek to do that work as effectively as possible. The result of that examination, which took place over some considerable time through that year, was the medium-term financial plan, which the House agreed to last year and which broadly delivers a 17% reduction on the estimate over the course of this Parliament, from what was estimated would be £231 million at the start to £210 million by 2014. This year’s estimate of £200.6 million is on track to achieve that.

I should add, for those who are aficionados of dissecting the numbers, that some areas of the numbers are not entirely like-for-like. Therefore, to make an exact comparison, one has to take account of those areas of transfer in or transfer out. I can assure the House, however, that in broad terms we are on track to achieve the estimate that we were seeking to achieve of £210 million by the end of the period.

[Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Paragraph 2 of appendix A, which is entitled “Medium-Term Financial Plan” and appears on page 12 of the report, lists

“a number of significant policy matters and events on the horizon that may have a bearing on the budget”.

The variability of the sums derived from those items seems to be enormous, so how can we have any confidence in the figures that the hon. Gentleman is presenting to us?

[John Thurso]

The Finance and Services Committee has looked in detail and scrutinised all these areas. One of the major factors that will affect the estimate is the movement of the House pension fund from our own resources across to the civil service, which will change the way it is accounted. The other areas where there is a degree of uncertainty include, for example, the impairment costs, which we have been advised should be made in respect of certain buildings, and the way we account for them. These have been moved from the capital cost, which is where they were budgeted for, to the resource account of the administration budget, where it is thought they should more properly be. I hope that answers, in part, the hon. Gentleman’s question.

[Andrew Miller]

With respect—I do not mean that to be interpreted in the usual way—the first item on that list is:

“Palace of Westminster Restoration and Renewal”.

That is a massive imponderable. We have no idea at present of the scale of that cost, the timetable or where all the other items on the list ought to fit into the context of that project.

[John Thurso]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for narrowing his question down. I will come to the restoration and renewal project in a moment. The key point is that, except for the points I will make shortly about the contract to make a full, professional and robust estimate of the costs and cost probabilities going forward, none of the costs to which he refers will fall in this Parliament or in the current medium-term financial plan. What the hon. Gentleman has identified will fall into the costs that go forward beyond the time frame of the costs that we are debating.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman rightly pays tribute to the staff of this House, and the report refers to our desire to be an “exemplary employer”. Will he confirm that no one working in this place is employed on a zero-hours contract and that staff receive at least the London living wage?

[John Thurso]

I can confirm both those points. Indeed, this was going to be my first substantive point. I suggest that I come right on to it and make my points; if the hon. Gentleman is not satisfied with them, he can intervene on me again.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Allowing for ins and outs, the global reduction on House expenditure is 17%. Does the same apply to expenditure by, and on behalf of, Select Committees? Will the same reduction in expenditure be achieved for Select Committees?

[John Thurso]

I intend to cover resources to Select Committees as one of my five main issues. The 17% figure applies to the total, but there are variances within it. I believed it was important to approach this from the beginning not by saying, “There is the budget; let’s just slice it and take 17% off everything”, but by looking at areas where bigger savings or fewer savings might be made. The objective was to deliver the appropriate service that we as parliamentarians require to do our work. That was certainly what lay behind the work that was done. There is an issue relating to Committee resources, and I promise to come on to it. Again, I invite my hon. Friend to intervene on me later if he is not satisfied by what I say.

[Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. He would add, of course, that some positive savings may be made—in other words, the work of the Administration Committee and other Committees can support positive saving, so it is not just a case of making cuts.

[John Thurso]

Indeed. I believe my hon. Friend refers to the income generation strand. I intend to refer to that, too, so I invite him to intervene again after I have dealt with it. I suspect that the Chair of the Administration Committee intends to catch your eye, Mr Speaker, and may well speak on this subject, as I know that this Committee has done a considerable amount of work on it.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is giving us a foretaste of his speech, so will he say whether he intends to speak about the cost of maintaining the fabric of the House as well?

[John Thurso]

Indeed. Another of my five points deals with restoration and renewal. Perhaps it would be a good idea if I just got on with it, Mr Speaker!

I was about to clarify the five points on which I wanted to focus: first, pay and contracts; secondly, income generation; thirdly, restoration and renewal; fourthly, the education centre; and, fifthly, Committee resources. There are a huge number of other issues within that. I have with me the last three days-worth of reading provided for me on virtually every subject. I am happy to try to answer any points raised, but I would like to stick mainly to the five points that I have drawn out as being the most important for our consideration today.

On pay and conditions, then, I have said before that we have a very high quality of staff. In my judgment, it is imperative to maintain that, and to do so, we must be exemplary employers. It is indeed the firm intention of both the House of Commons Commission and the Management Board that the House service be regarded as a model employer, using the best practices in employment. As we all know, however, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and it is not so much the intentions that count as how we give effect to them.

Let me deal with our commitment to the London living wage. I may be in danger of getting pelted for what I say, but I pay tribute to you, Mr Speaker, because you have led the drive with the Commission and the Management Board to ensure that we make a full and true commitment to the London living wage. You have provided an important piece of leadership on that issue. Both the chair of the Commission and the chief executive of the House service take the issue of the London living wage extremely seriously. The House is aiming to secure accreditation as a living wage employer from Citizens UK before Christmas this year and to achieve full compliance on all our contracts by April next year. That means our approach goes beyond the accreditation requirements. I can report that as of today all current House staff and all agency staff supplied to the House are paid at least the London living wage, and that contractors with dedicated staff who are based on the estate are paying those staff at least the London living wage, with a small number of exceptions that are currently being addressed and which we anticipate will have been addressed within a very short space of time. The final category is other contractors that provide services to the House. Good progress is being made to ensure they are paying their UK staff at least the London living wage if in London, or the living wage if outside London. I reiterate that we are on course to be accredited by Christmas and we are on course to meet the goal of having everybody, including our contractors, in compliance by next April.

[Thomas Docherty]

The hon. Gentleman will recall that, with the support of my hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House, I tabled some parliamentary questions a few months ago about the living wage. At the time, the hon. Gentleman said a small number of new starters—agency staff, I think—were not receiving the living wage in their probationary period. Has that issue now been addressed? If the hon. Gentleman could write to me about that, I would be most grateful.

[John Thurso]

My belief is that that issue has, indeed, been addressed—and I think I have just had a little divine inspiration to confirm that. If, by any mischance, I have misinformed the hon. Gentleman, I will most certainly write to him, but otherwise he may take it that that has indeed been addressed.

The second issue I wish to touch on is what are termed zero-hours contracts. The Commission asked the Finance and Services Committee to look at that issue and prepare advice. We are in the final stages of preparing that advice and it will go to the Commission at its next meeting on Monday, so it is still, as it were, in draft, but I would like, if I may, to outline what the content of that advice is going to be.

In summary, we are advising that the House should not take on zero-hours contracts. Their key feature is that they do not have mutuality of obligation; that is the critical point that came out. We had a fascinating written and oral evidence session involving some very good employers ranging from supermarkets to the Royal Household and others, and what came out clearly was that good employers with good HR practices are not particularly keen on zero-hours contracts because of this lack of mutuality. We came to the firm view that, as that is the principal feature of zero-hours contracts, we should have nothing whatever to do with them.

We further go on to advise that where staff are currently being employed on a casual basis they should be placed on proper contracts that provide for full and appropriate employee rights with mutuality of obligation, and that that should be supported by best practice and, in particular, by the adoption of a code of conduct. I was particularly grateful to my right hon. Friend—if I may refer to him as that—the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Mr Howarth) who, with other colleagues, put together a report on this issue that included a model code, which we think is very fit and which we intend to recommend to the Commission.

This kind of call-off contract is a much better way of dealing with the perfectly legitimate need to have some casual staff within our service, particularly in regard to catering. We believe that by doing that in the way I have set out, and which we intend to advise the Commission to follow, we will be fulfilling our goal of being employers of the first order.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the work he is doing on this, which I think is very helpful. We have been in correspondence over the past year now about the interpretation of the contract of the staff in the Members’ Tea Room. Some of them have been working to certain customs and practice conditions for over 25 years and have had wage cuts as a result of a new interpretation of their contract. That still has not been resolved, and my understanding is that, following last week’s negotiations, the staff are still awaiting an offer from management. Can we try to resolve this situation as quickly as possible? It has gone on for more than a year and is undermining morale.

[John Thurso]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that issue with me. I do not have a specific answer to it, but I take very seriously what he said and will look at it, do what I can and come back to him.

The final point that we learned from our evidence session, and which absolutely every one of the HR directors of the various enterprises made, was: never allow HR and management to use zero hours as a sloppy way of managing staff. Our advice will contain a statement to that effect: that it is proper to have call-off contracts and to deal with casual staff properly, but it must be done with rigorous HR. I do not know what fellow commissioners may or may not say to all that, but I am hopeful that the Commission will accept the advice we are proffering.

The final point I would make on pay and conditions is that change is always difficult and unsettling, even in the best of organisations. I have had experience of, to use the jargon, “re-engineering” two businesses that were going bust to make them sustainable for the future. In making changes and asking people to change the way they do things, there are difficulties and there is absolutely no way round that. That is going on here, but what we are trying to ensure—and seeking to impress on the management—is that this be done as transparently and fairly as possible. There will be blips in morale from time to time, but everything possible should be done to mitigate that, and I believe the House service has listened to the points we have made.

There is of course one major area of disagreement on pay and conditions, which is going to end up being dealt with in court. That is regrettable, but as I understand it the legal advice on both sides is robust, and that is what happens in such situations. However, in most other areas —probably all—the discussions, based on good will, are likely to progress well, and I pay tribute, frankly, to the union representatives who have also engaged in those discussions with House management.

[Andrew Miller]

Of course, we are not a business that is going bust; we are a Parliament, and I am sure we all agree that that is the top priority in this discussion. What contingency is there in the figures if the House is proved wrong and has to pay legal fees and the increments involved?

[John Thurso]

The sums are fully provided for, as the hon. Gentleman would expect. I cannot tell him off the top of my head exactly what they are, including all the elements; if I may, I will write to him. It is obviously several million pounds, but I do not know exactly how many several million, and I would not wish to give the House the wrong information.

When I was saying earlier that I once re-engineered two businesses, I thought, “I know exactly what I would say to that if I was sitting somewhere else in the House”, and the hon. Gentleman has not disappointed me. Of course we are not a business going bust, but in looking at costs, any organisation can look hard at what it is setting out to do and the way it is setting out to do it. We now use iPads and we have radically changed our hours, so how and when we do things have changed out of all recognition, in just a decade. It is therefore right that we look at these issues, and clearly there has to be change.

I turn to income generation, an issue that I anticipate the Chairman of the Administration Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst), will fill the House in on if he catches your eye, Mr Speaker. Parliament, in addition to being a working institution, is an iconic visitor attraction and world heritage site, so it is right that we develop ways of making it available to visitors. It is also right that we retrieve the costs of that. The principles, which I have set out before, are, first, that Parliament is a working institution and its work as Parliament takes primacy over all other activities. Secondly, all citizens have a right to access their MP on all aspects of the legislative process without let or hindrance or charge. Subject to those two overriding principles, however, the House has a duty to open to visitors as much as it can, and to recover the costs involved. The three relevant areas are: the development of more commercial tours; the development of retail activity; and the use of the banqueting facilities by outsiders.

[Kevin Brennan]

It is that last point that disturbs quite a few colleagues in the House. Point 26 of the financial plan talks about

“commercial hire on a limited number of occasions”

and

“on an experimental basis”.

We have managed to survive as a Parliament for several hundred years without having to hire ourselves out, in some cases to the very commercial interests that caused the austerity that has resulted in our cutting our budgets. It would be ironic, would it not, if the bankers were sipping champagne in the people’s Parliament because we needed to raise money as a result of the damage they had caused. I believe that that is a line we should not cross.

[John Thurso]

I completely respect the point that the hon. Gentleman is making, but there are huge amounts of time when we are in recess and not sitting here. Our dining rooms and banqueting rooms are very good facilities that match the best facilities offered by the livery halls and other venues. If we can operate during those times to make money that can be put towards restoration and renewal, for example, that is an absolutely legitimate thing to do.

[Kevin Brennan]

No, it is wrong in principle.

[John Thurso]

The hon. Gentleman and I will disagree about this. Last year an amendment was tabled on the subject, and it was duly defeated. I completely understand his point, and it is critical that the people who have access to this place are properly vetted, but if venues such as Buckingham Palace can open in this way, I see no reason why we cannot do so. We should also be able to recover the costs involved. Clearly we should not charge for room hire for Member-organised events while we are working here, but otherwise, I believe that this is the right thing to do. The House, with its customary caution in these matters, is doing it on the basis of a two-year trial, which is being overseen by the Administration Committee. At the end of that time, we will be able to see how it is going.

[Sir Paul Beresford]

My hon. Friend might be aware that, being close to London, I use the facilities here for charity events to the nth degree. Those events do not involve bankers; they involve ordinary members of the public who, because we are opening our doors, are given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the facilities here and enjoy the expertise of our banqueting service. I believe that, as MPs, we should be opening the House in this way.

[John Thurso]

My hon. Friend serves on the Finance and Services Committee, and I am grateful to him for his comments.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) that outside organisations such as charities should be able to have access to these facilities. I am a patron of a charity that had its launch here two years ago, and many people were grateful for that opportunity to come here. However, I also share the concerns of the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) to some extent. One of the reasons that the catering department has had to look so much more widely is that political parties and trade unions, which regularly used to use the facilities, were effectively prohibited from doing so following the reforms of a few years ago. We want healthy political parties and well-organised trade unions that serve the interests of their members, and it is something of an irony that those bodies in our civic society that are among the most closely connected to this place are now the least able to use our facilities. Should not that matter be addressed?

[John Thurso]

If I may, I will write to the hon. Gentleman about that, unless the Chair of the Administration Committee happens to know more about the exact criteria involved and can give him an answer now. I believe that the reforms involved removing sponsored events, and that it would still be possible for other events to take place under the new system, but I will find out exactly what the situation is and get back to the hon. Gentleman.

[Andrew Miller]

We need some clarity on that in this debate, as there is some confusion. The events that I run on behalf of the parliamentary and scientific committee, the oldest all-party group, are rocketing in price under the new propositions. Learned societies, universities and science-based organisations should not carry such a burden.

[John Thurso]

I can confirm that there is no charge for events undertaken by Members, and there is a 25% discount on events for outsiders that are sponsored by a Member. There is no discount on events that are run purely by outsiders. That is my understanding, but I will happily confirm that to him.

[Kevin Brennan]

rose—

[Mr Jenkin]

rose—

[John Thurso]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) and then I want to move on.

[Kevin Brennan]

I was endeavouring to organise an event, on behalf of an all-party group, and was told that there was a minimum charge of £750 for the Terrace marquee. Does that square with the point that the hon. Gentleman is making?

[John Thurso]

I really do not want to go further in making comments when I do not have fully accurate data in front of me. In my role as president of the Tourism Society of the United Kingdom, I am sponsoring an event next March, and it is on the same conditions as the event last March. There might be a cut-off for events that are already booked, which is why I might not have the full facts. I will, if I may, come back to the hon. Gentleman and make sure that everyone who is in the Chamber is fully aware of exactly what is happening.

[Mr Bacon]

I am sorry to labour this point, but the hon. Gentleman half makes the point for me. I was told last week by my secretary that a social housing provider in my constituency, which has held events here in the past, thinks that the new terms and conditions will be absolutely crippling and that it will not be able to hold events here in the future. My point, which echoes that of the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), is that this is not the InterContinental.

[John Thurso]

I am very well aware of that. The principle is that we should recover the appropriate costs. It would be quite wrong for this House to subsidise anyone from outside in the provision of any facility. It is a matter of retrieving the appropriate cost for an event. That goes back to the principle that I set out at the beginning of the debate. I ask hon. Gentlemen to let me get the exact truth of the matter and give it to them, rather than carry on and possibly make a mistake. The Chair of the Administration Committee might be able to give a fuller answer.

The Palace of Westminster is a heritage site, an iconic building and a major visitor attraction. Most importantly, it is also a working institution in which we work throughout our time as Members of Parliament. It is also a building in which the fabric is at, or well past, its sell-by date. Some mechanical and electrical elements have been nursed on by brilliant engineers, but in any other building they might well have been replaced quite a long time ago. It is clear that a major project of renewal and restoration is required. The Commission’s internal report suggested a number of possibilities, and three broad strands were chosen. It was decided that, as the matter was so important, it should be looked at by external experts who can look both at the robustness of the business cases and at the cost, so that we have the very best possible advice. It has always been my experience that money expended at the start of a process on good understanding of the problem, so that we bottom out and scope the project, saves a great deal of money later on.

Broadly, the three main options are: a rolling programme with no decant—something like we are doing now—but with quite significant changes to working patterns; a rolling programme with a partial decant; or a complete decant to get everything done quickly. Those options will be appraised by the professionals. In order to get the best possible people to do the work, a contract has been put out to tender. I hope to be in a position to announce to the House before we rise for the Christmas recess who has won the tender and the details of it. They will then commence work, which will enable a decision to be made based on robust professional work at some point early in the next Parliament.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Is it not clear from what the hon. Gentleman has said that vast sums of money are being spent and will continue to be spent to ensure the upkeep of this building? Nevertheless, decanting must come at some stage because the money that is being spent will not, of course, bring about the total work that is clearly required. I worry that if we continue to delay the decision it will cost much more. I hope that by the end of the Parliament the decision will be reached so that the work that clearly is required—a completely new building, on this present site, of course—can be done.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Thurso]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that point and he and I have corresponded on the matter. It was precisely to ensure the robustness of the decision that the Commission decided to look for external professional assistance with no optimism bias, internal bias or anything else. I have a private view on what the result will probably be, but it would be quite wrong of me to state it publicly before we have seen the results of the work. If we get the best experts we can to consider the issue completely dispassionately and judge it against the criteria we put forward, we must wait and see what they say. I will not prejudge the outcome of their work. It will take a little time to do the report and I suspect that the decision will therefore be one for the next Parliament—although probably for very early in that Parliament. That is probably the correct way forward.

Let me now turn to the education centre. In the last Parliament, a decision was made on the recommendation of the Admin Committee to create a dedicated education centre substantially to increase the number of school visits to Parliament. In the light of the likelihood of the restoration and renewal programme’s going ahead and the financial conditions prevailing at the time, the Commission decided not to proceed with the full-on version but instead to proceed with a more modest approach, which is that being proposed at the moment. The proposal is for a demountable building to be placed on Victoria embankment. It will comprise five education rooms with appropriate facilities for looking after schoolchildren and a dedicated security entrance. The latter, of course, will have the added benefit of meaning that they will not have to come through security at Portcullis House. I know that occasionally there is a clash between the interests of Members and those of the education centre, so that is a happy bonus.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble and hon. Friend for giving way. Will the separate entrance to the proposed building have annual security cost implications? Is not the estimate for maintaining security at the education centre almost £500,000 a year?

[John Thurso]

Indeed. I would say to my right hon. Friend, who also serves on the Finance and Services Committee, that I was about to bring out the proper concerns he and other members of the Committee hold on that point. I will deal with them fully in just a moment.

The plans I have outlined will allow an extra 55,000 pupils a year to visit us. The current number is 45,000, so it will more than double. I emphasise that quite a lot of research has been done that makes it very clear that engaging with schoolchildren by getting them to come and see this place first hand and be shown how we work is by far one of the most effective ways of securing engagement in politics. I therefore set out not only to defend the education centre, but to advocate it robustly—we ought to be very proud of it.

The plans will depend on a number of factors, one of which is planning permission, which probably will not be dealt with until January or February. I thought it appropriate to draw that to the House’s attention today, as with a bit of luck, a fair wind and planning permission children could be using the new education centre this time next year.

Some Members have made the valid point that perhaps we should put the education centre on hold until renewal and restoration have taken place, but I respectfully argue the exact opposite. The centre will allow twice as many children to come here, so if we were to wait the likely five to 10 years for R and R it could be 12 to 14 years before the additional children came here, by which time several generations of schoolchildren would have missed their chance completely, so it is very important.

The costs involved—about £7 million in capital costs and approximately £1 million in running costs—are quite appropriate and proportionate to what is proposed. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight) is correct that a substantial chunk of the running costs—£470,000 or thereabouts—is for security, but the House’s total security costs are about £25 million, so in context it is not a particularly large sum. My point of view—I happily recognise that it is purely personal—is that £1 million, which we hope their lordships will consent to share with us, would be a suitable and proper investment in the education of our children and in getting them engaged with politics.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I am very supportive of the comments the hon. Gentleman has just made. Perhaps it would help other Members to know that that was not the only option that was looked at. Other options for increasing the number of schoolchildren coming here were considered. The only alternative available was putting a facility in No. 1 Parliament street. Anyone who considered that realised that fewer schoolchildren would be able to get through the facility and that it would simply transfer the congestion from Portcullis House and make it even worse at No. 1 Parliament street, so there is no real alternative to the proposal before us.

[John Thurso]

The hon. Gentleman, who also serves on the Finance and Services Committee, makes a valid point. The key point is that the per-pupil cost of this option was the lowest, so those of us who are in favour think that it gives the best value for money. Having said that, I completely recognise the point of view put forward by other Members. I am yet to meet a Member who is against the concept; the question is one of timing. I believe that we have to get on with it, but I fully accept that others do not necessarily share that view.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend answer the concern about how we can end up spending £7 million on a temporary building for this purpose? I imagine that schools across the country could do quite a lot with £7 million, but they cannot get it. It seems a lot for a temporary structure.

[John Thurso]

I am delighted to reassure my hon. Friend that it is not a temporary structure in the sense of being a glorified portakabin. In fact, it is quite the reverse. It is actually a purpose-built, demountable building with a minimum guaranteed shelf life of around 30 years. For a number of years we have had a very good-looking demountable building that used to be used on the green when we first started giving tours of the House. Everybody thought that it was a pretty good building and good value for money. Ultimately, it is about balancing the fact that it would be lovely to have something permanent that might or might not come with R and R with the possibility of having something not very good-looking but extremely portable. This genuinely offers extremely good value for money. The design has been undertaken by architects who were involved in some of the work on the Olympic site. It is really terribly well done. As I understand it, it is so well designed that the only objection so far on seeking planning permission is that one cannot see it—that it is not obvious enough. I therefore think we have probably got it just about right. I reassure my hon. Friend; I genuinely believe that it is good value for money. I commend it to Members of the House.

My final point is about Committee resources. One of the interesting things about this Parliament is the way in which Select Committees have taken on a more robust role following the introduction of election of their Chairs. Other than the Public Accounts Committee, which of course has the full and mighty resource of the National Audit Office behind it, Select Committees’ resources have remained broadly the same. The current plan does not envisage any particular increase, but Parliament should look carefully at what we want to do and how we might best do it. If it is recognised that there is a need for more resource, I would certainly look favourably at that in the next financial plan.

The Liaison Committee, under the chairmanship of my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), should look at the resources of Select Committees, and I would certainly commend that work. The Finance and Services Committee would be happy to engage with the Liaison Committee in that.

[Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

I am grateful for the remarks that my hon. Friend has made about resources for Select Committees. He is absolutely on the button—they have become a victim of their own success. For example, the Foreign Affairs Committee, with a staff of six, is meant to exercise oversight over 900 employees in 140 locations around the planet. We cannot do it. It is critical that the resources are reviewed.

[John Thurso]

I share my right hon. Friend’s views. I am signalling to the House that this should be considered in the same measured manner in which we have looked at other things. If we cut resources in places because we can do things more effectively, we must be able robustly to state why it is necessary to increase resources where we might wish to do so, and how that should be done.

Well ahead of the next planning round, which will be in a year or two, I am signalling that work should be done on Select Committee resources, and I encourage Select Committee Chairs to engage with the Liaison Committee and elsewhere to look at the resources properly and ensure that Parliamentarians’ key job of scrutiny of the Executive and some outside bodies, which we do through Select Committees, is undertaken.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

May I preface my question by saying what an excellent job my hon. Friend does in chairing the Finance and Services Committee? Will he confirm that one of the overriding tenets of our decisions on these cuts, which have not been easy, is that they should not affect the way in which Members of Parliament do their job? We have to look carefully at Select Committee expenses because they should not be used as a reason to restrict their effectiveness.

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[John Thurso]

I confirm that, in determining the appropriate resource for every activity, we always consider what we are seeking to achieve and the most effective way of achieving it, and we base the resource on that. That is how we wish to proceed.

[Mr Bacon]

The hon. Gentleman is right that the PAC is in a separate category because it has the resources of the NAO behind it, and of course the NAO seconds people to the Scrutiny Unit as well, but even the European Scrutiny Committee, of which I was a member some years ago, had 16 members of staff. It is curious that Select Committees, through the Liaison Committee, routinely undertake foreign visits—for very good reasons, I might add—but if a Committee wants to get even the smallest piece of independent legal advice for itself, it is inordinately difficult. In making the case for more resources, should that not be one of the things that is seriously considered? We need to make sure that Select Committees have access to the best legal advice and subject experts as a matter of routine within the warp and weft of their own activity, without being dependent on others.

[John Thurso]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. For most of last year I had the honour of serving on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. We had the opportunity to engage senior counsel, junior counsel and experts from a wide range of areas. We worked at breakneck speed and in a year came up with what has generally been accepted as a pretty comprehensive and far-reaching report that the Government are now putting into legislation—not enough of it, some commissioners believe, but most of it. The report was paid for by the Government because they had asked for it. That is an indication of how one might consider working in future.

I do not want to prejudge anything, nor do I wish to open a can of worms. It might be possible to say that a Select Committee should or should not travel or that it should spend more money on this or that. It is a debate that Committee Chairs and others involved in Committees need to have. They should do it in a thorough way and put forward something that is really robust, and then, at the financial end of things, we consider it based on fact rather than their saying, “Please give me 20% more.” The days when people just said, “Let’s have 20% more and go and do X, Y and Z with it”, are gone. The right approach is to work out what we want to do and how scrutiny can best be achieved, and then look at how best to deliver the resource.

[Mr Jenkin]

I think that my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) was referring to the lack of flexibility in the budgets—the fact that, for example, a Committee cannot forgo its right to go on a foreign trip and use the money to buy, say, part of or a whole extra member of staff. Obviously some Committees have very big travel commitments, but I do not see why those that do not have travel commitments cannot spend their allocation on something different.

[John Thurso]

The hon. Gentleman puts forward the interesting proposition that instead of having a series of silos that each Committee can dip into, each Committee has a budget and then decides how best to use it. That is quite a departure from where we are today, and I therefore could not comment on it other than to say that I find it an attractive intellectual possibility to pursue. My point in raising this was to suggest to people such as him who are considering these matters that a process is needed, and I think the Liaison Committee is the best place for it to be kicked off.

Before anybody else has a chance to intervene, may I say that I think I have now carried out a tour of everything? I apologise for occupying the crease for so long—it is not my habit—but I wished to take all the interventions that were offered as best I could. I commend the motion and the estimate to the House.

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[John Thurso]

By my count, some 14 or possibly 15 Members—in addition to the Front Benchers and me—have taken part in the debate. It has been constructive, not only because of the support that has been given to the motion and concepts that have been proposed but in how disagreement has been expressed. I would have liked to have acknowledged the contributions of every Member who spoke, both those who expressed differences of opinion and those who expressed support, but given that we are a little past 2.15 pm, may I do that collectively? It has been an extremely good and fulfilling debate and I will ensure that where I made the odd mistake—I have subsequently been inspired with the answers—Members receive the information in writing. My strong sense, which I hope is not misplaced, is that the House feels favourably towards the motion, so I urge Members to support it.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes the medium-term financial plan for the House of Commons as set out in Appendix A to the First Report from the Finance and Services Committee, HC 754; endorses the intention of the Finance and Services Committee to recommend to the House of Commons Commission a House of Commons: Administration Estimate of £200.6 million, which includes funding for the proposed Education Centre; further notes that, in line with the target for the Savings Programme, this is consistent with a reduction of 17 per cent in real terms since 2010-11; and further endorses the intention of the Finance and Services Committee to recommend to the Members Estimate Committee a House of Commons: Members Estimate of £33.3 million.