Is the House is falling down?
No, not quite: nothing is ever as bad a first reported, but there is a significant backlog of important maintenance issues.
I am referring, of course, to the reappearance at Westminster of the Restoration and Renewal project, which is back on the agenda yet again. I say that, because we have seen it off at least twice in my time. We’ve sacked numerous consultants and consultancies and sent them packing with their monstrous and extortionate plans.
But they are back with another collection of totally inappropriate options, set out in a glossy one-hundred and twenty-five pages, fit for the best coffee table. They just can’t seem to get the message.
The Palace of Westminster, which accommodates both Houses of Parliament, is contemporaneous with its neighbour Westminster Abbey, together they are getting on for 1000- years-old. The Palace, however, has burnt down several times in the course of history, so much so, that the only surviving bit of the original is Westminster Hall. The rest of what you now see was rebuilt between the eighteen forties and sixties, following the last great fire. Subsequently the Commons chamber and one or two other parts had to be restored once more, after being bombed in the second World war.
The iconic building, a World Heritage site, is the result of an open architectural competition which was won by Sir Charles Barry, who subcontracted much of the design to Augustus Pugin, a prolific church builder, who was steeped in the Oxford Movement. The result is a magnificent and deeply spiritual building that, in its public spaces, resembles an Orthodox cathedral.
Like any building of that age and magnificence it requires continual maintenance. A backlog has built up. This is partially due the changed parliamentary calendar. Although Parliament is sitting for the same number of days as it always did, we’ve broken them up into so many ‘mini-breaks’ and we no longer have the mid-July to mid-October recess, when the workmen had the place to themselves. Now we come back bang in the middle, completely cramping their style.
Consequently, restoration has required us to work in a building-site continuously for the last few years. It is inconvenient but we can get by. Indeed, Big Ben has been completely restored already, as have many other parts.
The problem is not ‘Restoration’, we are doing that.
The problem is ‘Renewal’: Instead of just preserving Pugin and Barry’s work for future generations. There is a determination to modernise it with glass and steel. They want it to carbon neutral, to be 100% ‘accessible’ and inclusive. They want new interpretive spaces, they want to rip-out and refurnish.
To achieve all this they’d have us move out for 8 to 15 years whilst they spend as much as £40 Billion on their new creation.
We all know how that ends: long overdue, and vastly over-budget. And they’ll wreck it.
The sensible alternative is just to restore the magnificent building that we already have, and on a budget that we can afford.