Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill — House of Lords, 2019-07-22
Topic: Government Operations
Iain McNicol (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support the amendments of my noble friends Lord Blunkett and Lady Smith and that of the noble Lord, Lord Bethall A number of themes have emerged from the discussions over the past 50 minutes. The amendments were eloquently outlined by my noble friend Lord Blunkett and that set the tone for the rest of the debate on group five. There has not been a voice against the amendments and I would not like to be in the noble Earl’s place in trying to respond across the House The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, touched on the rebuilding of civic trust. He is absolutely correct. There is a misconception about the restoration and renewal project among those outside who do not know much about it that it is about us improving the place for the benefit of parliamentarians and spending large amounts of money in doing so. We all know that it is actually about maintaining the heart of our democracy and the benefits it brings as a centre of education and heritage A number of noble Lords spoke about education. I have been in the House only for a year and one thing I went straight into was working with the education and schools engagement team. For those who have not had that opportunity, I highly recommend it. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, talked about reaching out to all secondary schools, but some of the most engaging conversations I have had have been with primary school children. My noble friend Lord Adonis is correct that not enough schools are coming into the House, and we should encourage that more. We should use this as an opportunity to reach out further; the sponsor body should have the ability to do that and should hold it at the forefront of its mind when thinking about what the Palace should look like once we go through this process. It should think about engagement with education and schools. That would be to all of our benefit There are other organisations across civil society, including the trade unions. To go right back, the Joint Committee’s recommendation was that the sponsor body should, "promote public engagement and public understanding of Parliament" When this was in its infancy and being pulled together, there was talk of a public understanding of Parliament We all know what happens with large infrastructure projects—and this will be a large infrastructure project. Too often, sometimes for unforeseen reasons, they overrun in time and expenditure. Parliament will not have the time to do the work on this—there is a lot of other work that Parliament needs to do—so putting it in the Bill and adding it as a responsibility for the sponsor body will help us to deal with some of those issues. If we do not get out there and tell the story of restoration and renewal, we could see many of the criticisms and problems that have arisen with other large infrastructure projects To touch on another amendment, we should ensure that businesses across the UK benefit from the economic advantages that the project will bring. Some of the contracts should go out across the UK, and that should remain at the forefront of the sponsor body’s mind If my noble friend Lord Adonis gets his wish and we end up with a coffee shop in the Royal Gallery, I am more than happy to help out as the first barista. I support the amendments.