Whisper it, but maybe the Palace of Westminster has had its day
|
Version 0 of 1. Let me share a secret with you. Even those who love the Gothic extravagance that is the Victorian Palace of Westminster know that great swaths of it are out of date. Parts of it were out of date before the 30-year rebuilding programme of 1840-70 was completed, as MPs and peers complained at the time. In 2015 the urgent question is again what to do about it. As the Speaker of the Commons, John Bercow, said in a speech on Monday – here is the Guardian’s account – radical decisions have to be taken about its future, the options ranging from staggering on as usual with make-do-and-mending to a new 21st-century building on a new site, possibly far from London. As you would expect, the prospect has given an open goal to parliament’s critics – check out a sample of comments here – which I hope will make them feel better. Talk of a £3bn repair bill (just a guesstimate) is never going to be popular either, which is why these decisions are postponed over the decades, like MPs’ pay. Related: MPs could be forced to 'abandon' crumbling Westminster, Speaker warns For a more grownup perspective, take a dip into the Commons and Lords’ 2012 review of the problem (no, 2012 wasn’t a good year for spending money on parliament either) here . After reminding readers that the palace (and that clock) is a Grade I world heritage site, the study group offers four basic choices: the status quo; an ongoing programme of rolling repairs, which turns the place into a building site in August and September; buying a new site nearby and starting again; or a more radical renovation plan that would not close the building entirely and decant MPs elsewhere so that the overhaul can be done quicker and better. Before you start shouting, remember a couple of awkward facts. Given parliament’s architectural status (you don’t have to like Gothic – many don’t – to see that), even if MPs left forever the taxpayer would still have to foot a bill to maintain it and find a new use. Turn it into flats (and send MPs to Hull), Generation Rent suggested the other day. GenRent is witty, but challenging. They’d be pretty grand flats, many of them, and Hull is not one of northern England’s most central cities, as Manchester and Leeds will point out. Never mind, we get the idea. In an age of excessive London dominance of the country and of distaste for politicians, the symbolism of radical decentralisation will be irresistible to many, much as it was in the early days of parliament during the 13th century and long after, when it moved all over the place at the king’s wishes. The public mood is so fractious that it is not a good time to make a calm decision and the next parliament may be even more fractious. So I suspect it will be fudged again. And don’t forget that new buildings are also a risk either of being duds or excessively expensive (or both). Both Welsh and Scottish parliamentary buildings were costly, but Holyrood’s ambitious design is at least popular among its users. Personally, I would have liked to see the 1999 revived parliament sit, if only once, in the old Scottish parliament building, now the Scottish supreme court off the Royal Mile, but everyone says it would not have been practical. The symbolism of continuity amid change matters to most people, even some who scoff at it. I also like the Gothic Palace of Westminster, though I would not have its magnificent, lurid wallpaper in my own home. But, just as Victorian MPs complained that the dining facilities were too small and they had no offices for their clerks (secretaries), so the building has required constant adaptation ever since. Bombed by the Luftwaffe in May 1941, it was rebuilt under the influence of Churchill’s conservative/romantic temperament pretty much as it had been – no need for newfangled hemispheres, eh? It was a lost opportunity but its prestige was very high after the war. Peers and MPs spent much of their decanted decade in nearby Church House, the Church of England’s HQ behind Westminster Abbey. But by far the biggest change, one which has been reflected in the physical buildings on the parliamentary estate, has been in the way MPs do their business. In Radio 4’s Julia, Dear Boy, Julia Langdon’s programme about political reporting, my old Guardian boss, Ian Aitken – still buying his round at 87 – is heard regretting the new dominance of select committee work over debate in the chamber: not suitable for our system, which does not have Washington’s formal division of powers: government, legislature and courts. I’m not sure he is right. But major debate has shrunk dramatically in my working life, there are rarely set-piece six-hour events led by the prime minister now. And committees have grown – just look at the critical reports they produce on a cross party basis, as the defence committee did only this week. That translates into new select committee rooms, fit for the TV age, in Portcullis House, the glass, stone and steel office block with the black Tudor chimneys opposite Big Ben. The old committee corridor (that wallpaper clashes on television) is now neglected, as is the members’ lobby, where reporters used to lie in wait for passing ministers. Texting works better and Portcullis House’s atrium is the place to loiter. Most MPs prefer modern offices there to the drafty cubby holes for which they might once have killed to get a desk. So Portcullis House has already become the centre of gravity for parliamentary life except for 30 minutes of prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, not the most edifying spectacle, though a useful letting-off of steam for frustrated backbenchers. Don’t knock it too hard. There is a neglected air about the old Gothic building that is hard to deny. So called family-friendly hours, 9 to 7-ish, do not help. Today’s MPs are much more executive-minded and hard-working in a constituency sort of way, but the organic sense of a living institution has diminished. I have not yet seen sagebrush bouncing along a corridor or weeds pushing up through the tiles. But it may just be a matter of time. The old building needs more than the damp fixed and the rats held at bay (I once killed a mouse on a colleague’s desk with a stapler), it needs a functional makeover too. Perhaps as a new constitutional settlement for Britain – whatever the form it takes – a new architectural expression of parliament will emerge from the rubble of the past. A regionally based elected upper chamber? An English parliament alongside a federal one? It’s hard to be sure what is going to happen next in political terms, but it may solve the architectural challenge more easily than we now imagine. Portcullis House is a symbol of organic adaptation to change and – says me – a building to be proud of too. Perhaps it really is time to start again. But it will take bold leadership, always in short supply. |