Parliament’s voiceless staff will pay the price for inaction on its crumbling buildings
Houses of Parliament (Credit: Vuk Valcic / Alamy Stock Photo)
3 min read
In and around Parliament it is normal to expect buckets that catch leaks from heavy rain, or yellow “Caution Wet Floor” signs where the leaks are uncontainable
If you are really lucky, you will almost certainly catch a mouse from the corner of your eye at some point and if you are even luckier, you will encounter the brilliantly dysfunctional plumbing system.
Everything in Parliament is broken, in a very literal sense. In addition to the obvious risk of asbestos poisoning, and the risk of catastrophic fire, the work environment itself is far from ideal, with small and dysfunctional offices, lack of adequate ventilation, electrical devices blowing up (especially toasters which nine times out of 10 are the reason the fire alarm goes off) to name a few.
Even the House of Commons Chamber is too small to be functional and fit all 650 MPs at once. Anyone would think, considering the risks involving a building which is full of thousands of people every day – some of them even quite well-known – and given how dysfunctional the working environment is, that moving on to a more modern building would be a no-brainer.
Well, this is not how things work in Westminster. The parliamentary estate is much-loved by everyone. It feels like a museum when you walk through it and, in fact, it is. The British Parliament is the single most important piece of interactive history and the experience of working here is impossible to compare to any other feeling. When you are here, you are part of something bigger than yourself: you are part of a history and part of a future.
It feels like a museum when you walk through it and, in fact, it is
In fact the parliamentary estate brings feelings of melancholy, patriotism, and pride in the people who walk in these corridors every single day. But none of those with the power to do so, seem to feel a need to protect this very important part of history with its asbestos-riddled corridors, leaky roofs, and infrastructure unfit for the modern age. The lack of leadership on restoring the Houses of Parliament is a situation of concern, particularly because I think we all know how this story ends. A life will be claimed by the indecision on the restoration of Parliament, and it will make MPs finally decide on the impossible: the need to move out.
Procrastination isn’t saving on costs: in fact, quite the opposite. We are currently spending around £2m a week to patch up parts of the building, which hardly even amounts to preservation. The current estimate is that MPs would need to move out for about 20 years: the repair project would cost around £13bn and could take around 28 years. If MPs don’t move out, the project will take much longer and will cost much more.
Thousands of people work across Parliament, Members’ staff, lobby journalists, house staff, caterers, cleaners, security officers, policemen, engineers, and so on. None of them have a voice when it comes to this debate, and it’s these people who spend the most time in the building and therefore, statistically speaking, are likelier to incur the price of inaction. MPs must show leadership on this issue and make a decision not only for the benefit of a building that needs to be protected, but also on behalf of all those who don’t have a voice but are at risk of becoming a victim of a building which isn’t safe.
Laura Gherman is a parliamentary aide to a senior backbench Conservative MP
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