The Palace of Westminster
May 8, 2019The government has published a “Government response to the report of the Joint Committee on the Draft Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill”
What’s this about? Well, essentially the Palace of Westminster – the building that houses the House of Lords, the House of Commons and various offices, chapels and halls – is falling down. It’s a fire risk, bits of it keep falling off and narrowly missing people, and it’s a warren of unsuitable spaces with rubbish access and facilities.
It’s also, apparently, a World Heritage Site (which seems bizarre to me as it was only built in the nineteenth century albeit on top of some medieval buildings and incorporating some remnants) but which means it can’t just be left to rot.
Have we really got between £3-6 BILLION to spend on a building, though, however historic?
Usually the government’s answer to anything expensive is to offload it. Why aren’t we preserving the building by flogging it off to someone else, in the way that the County Hall buildings opposite were preserved? Give it to a hotel group for a peppercorn and let them spend the money?
If you look at more modern parliament buildings like the Scottish Parliament or the EU Parliament they are arranged differently, usually in a semi circle to facilitate civilised discussion rather than the yah-boo-suckery of the two-sides-two-swords-lengths-apart Commons. They have microphones that work and electronic voting systems that don’t rely on parliamentarians being wheeled through the lobbies “sick bucket on lap and high on morphine”
So here’s a thought. There’s a perfectly adequate set of offices and chambers across the square, at the 100 Parliament Street building that houses the Treasury and other assorted Departments.
Move Parliamentarians into that.
There’s also a tragically underused circular car park at the heart of the building. Use that to build a twenty-first century debating chamber. Don’t faff about commissioning a new design. There’s an 800 seat theatre in the round sitting in the middle of the Royal Exchange building in Manchester, built in 1976 for a million quid. It’s a proven design using proven technology. A million quid in 1976 is about, what, seven hundred million now. Appoint an architect to oversee the project and give them a fixed seven hundred million budget and a firm closing date, and let them get on with it.
The Treasury? Move it into the Foreign Office building next door. Move the Foreign Office into the next building down Whitehall and so on, till the unlucky (lucky?) losers get to move into the Lord Moon of the Mall pub at the end of the road.
tiintax 
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