If Theresa May wants to see the consequences of inaction on the repair and restoration of parliament, she should stroll down the river to Tate Britain. There resides The Burning of the Houses of Parliament, Turner’s dramatic depiction of the inferno that engulfed the Palace of Westminster in 1834. Parliament is now in a dire state and a repeat of that episode is all too plausible. Yet instead of acting, the prime minister is prevaricating at considerable long-term expense to the taxpayer, apparently fearful of how voters will react if politicians are seen to spend money on themselves. She should overcome her anxiety.
When anti-establishment commentators propose to drain the swamp at Westminster, they do not know the literal resonance of those words. The wiring and drainage are dilapidated. The roof leaks. The sewage system leaves much to be desired and rodents abound. Much of the building is not safe. In the words of the public accounts committee, “the risk of a catastrophic failure is high and growing with every month that passes”.
It has been clear for some time that a multi- billion-pound repair job will be needed, and three main options are on the table. The first, backed by Andrea Leadsom, leader of the House of Commons, is to set the repair process in train now, but not allow it to go too quickly. Under this plan, the government would convene experts to consider the options with a view to making a decision in this parliament and work starting about 2025. The second would see only essential work carried out now, with a review of long-term options postponed to the end of the parliament. Work would not start until 2028 at the earliest.
Neither of those choices is palatable. As the buildings are allowed to deteriorate, the risk of mishaps grows, as does the cost of repair. If parliament had taken a decision in 2016, when the options were first presented, the taxpayer could have been saved £230 million. Better than either of the government’s wait-and-see approaches would be for MPs and peers to decamp as soon as possible to another venue and let contractors get on. This is supported by senior backbenchers on both sides of the aisle, including Tom Tugendhat and Johnny Mercer of the Conservative Party, and Frank Field and Stella Creasy from Labour. We report that Richmond House, a serviceable building on Whitehall used until recently by the Department of Health, is sitting empty, ready to be converted into a temporary debating chamber for MPs. The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre has been mooted as a possible destination for the Lords.
Some parliamentarians bristle at the thought of deserting their institution’s ancestral home, but they need not. Parliament has moved before. During the Second World War both houses convened in Church House in Westminster. In the Middle Ages parliament sat in the dining room of Westminster Abbey; during the plague it sat at Hertford Castle. The Palace of Westminster is special, but not all that special.
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Proceeding with repairs will be costly, yet neither the government nor parliament should be embarrassed by that cost. Taxpayers can understand that it is better to spend £4 billion on repairs now than to draw the process out and end up paying much more. If Mrs May cannot have an honest conversation with party and country about even that, it is going to be a difficult year for her.