Houses of Parliament: Co-location — House of Lords, 2022-06-16
Topic: Government Operations
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, it is a delight to follow my noble friend, who has so wonderfully ridiculed the nonsense that has brought us to this debate today. Nevertheless, we must take some of the things that the Government are saying seriously, difficult though that might be Like others, I congratulate and thank my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth. I declare my interest as chairman of the group that we founded together at the beginning of this century, the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber. We will continue to campaign for common sense and for the two Houses being together, in my case together in Westminster. This is the historic capital of the United Kingdom. I hope that it remains the historic capital of the United Kingdom, despite what certain government Ministers seem to be doing to discomfort those who believe in the United Kingdom I believe it is essential, for all the reasons that my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham so hilariously outlined, to keep us together in Westminster. The letter sent on Friday 13 May by Mr Gove is an example of arrogance and, frankly, ignorance that I have not seen equalled in my 52 years in Parliament—an anniversary that I mark on Saturday of this week. Whose business is it where we sit? It is the business of Parliament. Parliament is not the creature of government. Government is the creature of Parliament and the two Houses of Parliament, and that must be remembered. Yet Mr Gove fired off his letter to our Lord Speaker with its estate agent’s blurb at the end about where we could go if we did not like Stoke-on-Trent. He sent a copy the Prime Minister and a copy to the Leader of the House. I would like to know from my noble friend Lord True, who battled manfully with this subject on the Monday after the letter was sent, whether the Prime Minister was consulted. Was the Leader of the House consulted? If they were consulted, did they agree with this extraordinary proposition What makes it rather sinister is the answer to which the right reverend Prelate and my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham referred, namely the answer given by my noble friend Lord Greenhalgh to my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, which seemed to indicate that it was the policy of the Government that we should be hived off—it is not an issue of levelling up—into geographical obscurity because the Government wanted that to happen as part of their levelling-up agenda. Let us have some coherence and the facts. Is this really a government policy? If it is, it is a sinister policy Of course we want Parliament to be close to the people, but the way you do that is the way I have played a part in: you take Select Committees to towns or cities where the specific issues they are considering may be of particular importance, relevance and interest. I had the honour of being chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee for a full Parliament. When I took it over, I discovered that in the past it had mainly met at Stormont, and we had some meetings in Stormont, but we went around Northern Ireland to many towns and cities. We even went to Crossmaglen on one occasion because in theory it was a no-go area. I spoke to the chief constable, Sir Hugh Orde, who said, "Of course it’s not. You should go and you will go." The local reaction was very positive, so that sort of thing can happen. There is no reason at all why virtually all the domestic Select Committees of either House—education, health and all the others—should not have sessions in Stoke-on-Trent, Burnley and all the other places listed on the estate agent’s blurb that Mr Gove attached to his letter Parliament is for the capital city. As my noble friend Lord Norton and the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, made plain, Whitehall and Westminster need to be together. The practical difficulties, not to mention the absurdities of doing things on Zoom with people you can see and talk to here, are manifold. It is important that we have a united Parliament to which the Government are answerable, which is not the creature of that Government, meeting here in Westminster and, as the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, made plain, having that regular interchange between the two Houses. He gave some very good examples of his activities this week in that regard We really must say to the Government: you are meddling in things you have no right to meddle in. If this is just a freelance exercise by the temporary landlord of the QEII Centre, it makes it all the more, frankly, despicable. As my noble friend Lord Young said in his speech, some £11 million has already been spent on preparatory work for the QEII Centre. Where has that come from? How will it be compensated for There is another thing. Two or three members of the staff of your Lordships’ House came to me after our first exchange to thank me for what I had said and said, "Haven’t they thought of us?" As they said, many of them have children at school and houses that they have struggled to pay for. Do they really want to be decanted to Stoke, fine city as it is, in the county I had the honour to represent for 40 years? We must have consideration for those who work with us and for us, and my stress is on "with us". Whether they be our admirable doorkeepers, our librarians, our clerks or whoever they are, they expect to be here and we should fulfil the expectations that they legitimately had when they decided they wanted to work here Therefore, for every possible reason, this is a not a realistic proposition. I hope my noble friend will be able to confirm that there has not been thorough government consideration and approval of this. I hope he can, but if there has been, there is another battle on our hands. If there has not been, Mr Gove should concentrate on the things for which he is statutorily responsible and should not meddle from constitutional ignorance—because you could make this proposition only from constitutional ignorance—in this great matter of what Parliament is, where it should be and how the two Houses are bound together in a bicameral legislature of which we all are proud and of which we wish to be prouder.