Since the year 1547 our parliamentarians have occupied the Palace of Westminster. That’s almost half a millennium of debates and democratic challenge.
Westminster, which in medieval days was a mud-bound eyot called Thorney Island, has become the world’s greatest symbol of parliamentary stability.
The chimes of Big Ben, the Speaker’s shouts of ‘order!’, the hurly-burly of PMQs: these are known, from snowiest Tibetan peak to dustiest Mexican canyon, as totems of democratic safety.
Sir Keir Starmer‘s Government may be about to wreck that. Amid backroom manoeuvres – and a fog of contradictory news reports – it seems likely that, in a few weeks, the Government will put MPs and peers on notice to vacate their historic home.
The authorities will claim it is only a temporary move, for perhaps 20 years. They will say it is essential so that the current palace, rebuilt by the Victorian architect Sir Charles Barry after an 1834 fire, can be repaired and modernised.
Believe them at your peril.
It is true that Barry’s ornate palace needs urgent repairs. Turrets and pinnacles are crumbling. The basements are stuffed with dodgy wiring.
Consultants argue – and this, too, is correct – that builders will have an easier time if the site is empty. But when you give builders an easier time, they sometimes work less hard.
Since the year 1547 our parliamentarians have occupied the Palace of Westminster (pictured)
We will also be informed that a ‘full decant’ of parliamentarians to another site will make the restoration more affordable. Maybe.
But there is an unmentioned cost to the full-decant plan and it involves something more than pounds and pence – which will run into the tens of billions.
It concerns our nation’s attitude to our rulers. Westminster has so long been part of the British psyche that it has moulded how we think of politics. Over the centuries we have come to the view that we, rather than they, own that palace on the Thames.
The British have a stronger connection to their Parliament than any other nation. In a way that explains Brexit. If our Parliament’s historic building is closed for two decades and if MPs are shunted off to some modern alternative with low ceilings and plastic furniture, that spiritual connection will be severed. And that will suit the technocrats just fine. No wonder the Blob is pushing so hard for this extraordinary eviction.
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle, a traditionalist, has in recent days been outmanoeuvred.
He has been obliged to step aside from an important committee supervising the restoration project and he has seen one of his supposed allies do an unexpected volte-face.
Since becoming Speaker in 2019, Sir Lindsay had steered the restoration project away from a full decant. Under the last government he asked officials to draft a plan B that would allow parliamentarians to stay on site while the work was done around them. This was not as daft as it might sound.
After the 1834 fire the Commons and the Lords continued to assemble there while Barry went about his rebuild.
Restoration work on the Palace of Westminster in 2018
After a Luftwaffe bomb nearly destroyed the Commons chamber in the Second World War, MPs shifted only briefly to nearby Church House before they moved to the House of Lords. Continuity of occupation was maintained.
Last year’s general election need not have changed the settled position of repairing the palace during a ‘continued presence’ of MPs. Sir Lindsay was still Speaker, after all.
It was also felt that announcing a full decant would be politically difficult because it would entail £2.6 billion in immediate expenditure (not least on buying the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre as a replacement chamber).
Nor, with the economy in trouble, did the Treasury relish budgeting for the £20 billion approximate cost of the repairs. A slower, less ambitious rebuild would be more palatable.
Some of the ‘gold-plating’ of the architectural plans, particularly on disability access and Net Zero provisions, are said to be ludicrously over the top and more like something for a five-star Dubai hotel.
This Government has little regard for tradition or economic prudence, and Sir Keir’s people also understand that the less vivid a parliamentary building, the more likely it is that voters will switch off politics.
Whitehall would find it easier to bypass a Parliament based in less historic premises. At a recent House of Commons Commission meeting, Sir Lindsay was ambushed.
One of his allies had to leave early to attend a medical appointment. Once that person had left the room, Hoyle was presented with a fait accompli: the full decant was back on the agenda.
Because his own grace-and-favour house is part of the restoration plan, Sir Lindsay has been obliged to step aside from the board overseeing the plans. In his absence it will be chaired by deputy speaker Judith Cummins. No sparkler, she.
The stampede to a full decant is being led by Labour’s deputy chief whip, a shadowy figure called Sir Mark Tami. ‘Smarmy Tami’ is being assisted by Labour MP Nick Smith whose wife, Lady Chapman, used to be Sir Keir’s political director.
‘Smarmy’ and Smith are said to be in cahoots with the clerk of the Commons, Tom Goldsmith and his Lords counterpart Simon Burton.
Will MPs ever be allowed back into the palace? This is a Prime Minister, remember, whose national security adviser Jonathan Powell is on record as wanting to turn 10 Downing Street into a museum.
The decision of Lords Speaker John McFall to resign early has provided a sub-plot. Lord McFall was a passive presence at restoration committee meetings. What if his successor proves more outspoken and forges an alliance with Speaker Hoyle?
Westminster has so long been part of the British psyche that it has moulded how we think of politics
The contest to replace Lord McFall looks like being a three-way race between Crossbencher (Deborah) Bull and two
Conservatives, Lords Gardiner and Forsyth. Gardiner, who is as damp as a lavatory seat, could prove more malleable than former Cabinet minister Forsyth.
Meanwhile, Sir Alan Campbell, new Leader of the Commons, who was thought to be a traditionalist, has come out in favour of a full decant. Sir Alan previously ran the whips’ office, where his deputy was ‘Smarmy’ Tami. What a small world.
There is one gnat in the ointment for these schemers. The Commons Finance Committee is so concerned about the extravagance of the full-decant plan that it has announced a public inquiry.
Its chairman is Conservative MP Steve Barclay, who as a former Treasury chief secretary understands the ways and wiles of civil servants. He fears the full-decant could become ‘another HS2’. The clerks may be in for an uncomfortable interrogation at his committee’s hearings.
Crossbench peer Lord Vaux, another member of the Restoration and Renewal Committee, is a chartered accountant.
After the 12th Baron analysed the full-decant figures, he apparently had to be taken to the game larder of his Kirkcudbrightshire family seat to cool his fevered brow.
Taxpayers, and anyone who worries about the health of our parliamentary democracy, may want to join him there.