The master builders
Patrick Cosgrave
The proposed new parliamentary building, designed not merely to give Members of Parliament reasonable elbow room in which to work, but also to provide such indispensable aids to the activity of legislation as sauna baths, massage rooms and swimming pools, is utterly revolting. Unlike Mr Dick Leonard, the Labour member who defended the wretched thing in the House the other day, I am not at all impressed by the fact that "four of the most distinguished assessors that the House could have obtained" thought that this bronze glass contraption would be of "outstanding merit." Nor does it depress me terribly that — again as Mr Leonard said — if members decide eventually to drop the scheme the "effect on the architectural profession would be catastrophic." In fact, this prospect fills me with pleasure. The architectural profession has done more to destroy London even than the property speculators. However, apart from the design aspect of the debate, what demands discussion is the nature of Parliament itself as it is likely to be affected by changes, large or small, in the working facilities available to members.
The sole and simple justification for any new parliamentary building must be that it would enable members of parliament to do their job more efficiently. Obviously, once the railway station character of the surroundings in which members and their secretaries have to work was recognised, and once it was decided that something should be done to improve things then the concept of a decent minimum of amelioration was thrown out of the window and no end of fanciful and fantastical castles of luxury built in the air. The idea of luxury becomes essential to the whole plan. Speaking in the recent debate of less grandiose ideas for providing more room — specifically, the acquisition of the Norman Shaw North building (Great Scotland Yard) — the minister charged with supervision of the matter, Mr Paul Channon, observed that such an acquisition would provide a solution "less luxurious than . . . the new building ".
Far too many members fall to vigorous licking of their chops at the prospect of the decent austerity of the Palace of Westminster being replaced as a working area by something approaching in comfortable provision the Congress buildings in Washington. The fact that they do so should not, however, blind us to that concept of their job which predominates in the minds of all those who are not out and out opponents of the new building, when they fall to discussion of the subject. It is predominantly a secretarial concept. In Mr Channon's entire speech last week there was not the serious reference to the first charge on a member's time — that of debating the nation's affairs and analysing proposals made for their reformation. I would be the last to deny that members must look after the petty interests of their constituents, and wear themselves down with minutiae which, though minute, are of considerable importance, But the crucial job is the grand one.
And that means concentration on the chamber of the House of Commons. It also means the concentration as close to the chamber as possible of the ancillary activities of committees and lobbies of all kinds. I am aware that, according to one vigorous young member of Mr Channon's department, the Norman Shaw North building — the using of which I would favour if adequate provision cannot be found within the Palace itself — is a brisk five minutes walk along the Embankment to the Division Lobbies. But the point relates not so much to the distance between any extra accommodation and the House itself, as to the relative comfort of any newly proposed buildings. An hour or two in the sauna bath, the massage room, the television lounge or the swimming pool is likely to prove more attractive to far too many members than an hour or two pottering around the draughty old Palace of Westminster.
Chamber considerations carry much less weight these days than just after the war, and when the chamber was made deliberately too small for the total number of members, in order to add to its atmosphere during an important debate. But despite that it has been attenuated over the years, and is likely to be more so in the future now that we are in the Common Market, the debating function of the chamber of the House of Commons — with all the influence its existence and architecture has on the way the rest of the building which houses it operates — is the only chief distinctive feature of British democracy, the distinction which truly marks us out from the rest of the world. It is also the only distinction remaining which connects us with the Greek legislative tradition, which gave birth to all that we purport to treasure in our political way of life. And as long as there is even the merest breath in so mighty a tradition, the most resolute fight must be waged to preserve and resuscitate it: the convenience, as opposed to the role, of the legislators is a matter of the utmost inconsequence by comparison.
Moreover, for all that Mr Dick Leonard may say, for all that Mr John Smith resigned his seat because Westminster was less well-apppointed than his City offices, if there is a decline in the importance of the chamber, or inefficiency in the use of the resources of the Palace, this is a result, not of any arcane complexity in modern legislation, not of any special difficulty about handling the glutinous mass of modern governmental problems, but of the pusillanimity and unwillingness to assert themselves of modern members of parliament. The debate about extra provision for them has been, in its present phase, going on since at least 1960. Numerous studies have been made. The juggernaut of government planning has proceeded vaguely, but remorselessly, towards the bronze glass monster. And the House has again and again lain down under the unwillingness of the Government to provide time for debate in medics res. It would be inappropriate, Mr Prior has told members — and Mr Channon repeated him the other day — to debate the matter while the Services Committee is brooding on it. That we have had a debate at all was because Mr Patrick Cormack started one in private members' time; and he was forced to accept truncation of the discussion, as well as eliminate the normal give and take of Commons debate during his own speech, because time was pressing. When will members and ministers understand that the Chamber of the House of Commons enjoys not merely a deliberative function, but a scrutinising function as well?
Mr Tam Dalyell — a distinguished contributor to discussion of the provision of facilities — recently and honestly confessed that he had been inattentive when the car park plan was, almost by sleight of hand, put past the House late one evening: he has made some amends since by prodding the Government into taking greater care of the priceless archaeological relics which lie — or lay — beneath it. But it is in the nature of things that all governments, good or bad, find the House itself a somewhat cussed animal, and try hard to put things over it. The business of the House — and by that word I mean now the collective body of members, not distinguished by party — is to correct and chastise the rolling inertia of bureaucracy and authority. And where could it more usefully start a redefinition of its role than in the fundamental re-thinking of proposals for provision for themselves?
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