Restoration and Renewal of the Palace of Westminster — House of Commons, 2021-05-20
Topic: Government Operations
Shaun Stephen Bailey (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Gentleman—my hon. Friend, if I may say so—for that intervention. He is absolutely right. It has been disappointing that, because of the pandemic, I have not had the opportunity to show more schools round, but I hope to be able to do so in the future with our fantastic Education Centre, which I pay tribute to for the work it does, as I am sure all Members do I touched previously on the best of British, and we have to ensure that the procurement is open and transparent. That is key, and it is what the public expect, particularly given the fact that we have gone through some interesting times over the last few months. We need to ensure that there is transparency. I will not regurgitate all the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland made about transparency on the costings, because she articulated them much better than I would, but we need to be up front with people about the cost of this. When we talk about billions of pounds, what does that actually mean? We bandy these words around in the Chamber quite a lot, but sometimes that can feel quite disconnected, as I know from the conversations I often have with my constituents, particularly a few weeks ago on the doorsteps For example, the £29 million spent on the Elizabeth Tower project could pay for us to run nearly 1,000 police stations in my constituency. I am actually losing all my constituency’s police stations, but that is a different matter altogether that we are not going to talk about right now. The point is that we have to make this relative to the people we represent, because I think we all agree that ultimately this is their Parliament. We are the custodians of it, but this is their Parliament, and we have to ensure that we do the work on their building—on the people’s building—in the way that they would expect us to do it, which is transparent and cost-effective and respects the situation that we now find ourselves in As many Members have said, when people are losing their jobs and their livelihoods, it is difficult to explain why we are spending millions of pounds on a building. I would find it difficult to go into some of my most deprived communities that have lost so much and say to them, "We’ve just spent millions of pounds on knocking down a 35-year-old building." I would struggle to look them in the eye and justify that I am conscious of the need to allow colleagues to make their contributions, so I will conclude. We have to get this right. As many Members have said, it is about the people who are here; they are at the heart of this. I echo the comments made about accessibility, which is really important. The hon. Member for Bristol West articulated that very well, and I absolutely agree with her. We have to ensure that, as part of the works, this place is accessible to everyone and allows everyone, irrespective of additional need, to access it Equally, we must ensure that the people we engage to do the work pay the living wage and use apprentices and that this work is done to advocate social mobility, so that people from all backgrounds and all strands of life can be part of the work and benefit from it This is vital work. It will set the stage for how this place is viewed in the decades to come. It is vital that we get this right and get this done, but it must be done in the right way that respects our communities.