Peers’ Entrance Security Door

Question

Asked by

To ask the Senior Deputy Speaker what assessment he has made of the costs of the recent works on the security door to Peers’ Entrance.

My Lords, it is unacceptable that the Peers’ Entrance does not operate as it should. The commission has directed urgent work to resolve this. The commission agreed an exception to release the costs of the work at Peers’ Entrance, particularly as much of the cost relates to building and infrastructure works. The total cost has been £9.6 million. The cost to remedy defects will not be borne by the House and will be met by Parliament’s contractors.

My Lords, I do not hold the Senior Deputy Speaker responsible for this scandal, but it is a scandalous waste of public money. Who gave the security advice on the useless door and the ridiculous and ineffective fence? I was on the Joint Committee on security for some five years. We never discussed that at all. Who was responsible and who is accountable, by name, for the huge increase of nearly 50% in spending on the door? It is now nearly £10 million for a door that does not work. Somebody accountable should be identified and should perhaps resign for this terrible waste of public money.

My Lords, this is a very serious matter. As I have said before, the backdrop to this is that the Murphy review, as validated by the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, found that the West Front and this part of the Palace had considerable vulnerabilities. The director of security and the director of strategic estates, who were responsible for the programme with two outside contractors, report to the Clerk of the Parliaments and the Clerk of the House, who are the accounting officers.

The Lord Speaker has written to the noble Lord, Lord Morse, to request that he, given his experience of 10 years as Comptroller and Auditor-General of the National Audit Office, looks into the Peers’ Entrance works to examine the programme specifications and the cost. I will place a copy of the Lord Speaker’s letter in the Library so that noble Lords can have a look.

Is the Senior Deputy Speaker able to tell the House how much the estimate was for the development in the first place? He has told us how much it finally cost, but can he tell us how much the estimate was originally?

My Lords, again I have to preface this with what the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, said. I am not directly responsible for all this. My understanding is that the cost originally was £6.1 million. There were changes because of planned patterns of work and technical issues. One of the particular problems was that gas mains below ground, which originally passed through the entrance structure, had to be diverted. There were some other security capabilities and the cost of significant structural and ground works. There were additional costs, but my understanding is that the first sum was £6.1 million.

My Lords, the Senior Deputy Speaker has identified the total cost in relation to the Peers’ Entrance. I would like to identify that both Houses are currently recruiting a new chief commercial officer, which will cost £1 million in this Parliament. Under current circumstances, that is utterly unacceptable. Returning to the question of the Peers’ Entrance, the Senior Deputy Speaker told us the total cost, but the staff manning that door, calculated on the Written Answer he provided to me, are costing £2,500 per week. That cost has to be borne by someone. Can he identify by whom and when?

I will need to take some of that away so that I get the precise answer. To deal with the noble Lord’s first question, one of the areas I think we have not been good at—by we, I mean the administration, candidly—is project delivery capability. One of the reasons it was decided that the commercial directorate is now a joint department, as the Leader of the House sought the House’s agreement on, is that we must improve project delivery capability. That is what we are looking at with the appointment of the commercial director. They are large sums of money but, in the end, this is what the commercial rates are. I am afraid I am still of the generation that thinks £100 is a lot of money, but that is the situation.

On the issue of the number of people involved in the manual use of the door while it is being repaired and made usable, I am assured that they are within the existing complement of members of staff. I am mindful that the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, has asked me those questions. I will return to him with answers and put a copy in the Library so that there is transparency.

My Lords, we have spent a lot of money on the entrance and another lot of money on the fencing, but we still have the bag searches being done inside that secure area, in a centre where a lot of people gather. When is somebody going to address the security problem of the bag searches in our midst?

My Lords, that is part of the future programme. I am afraid that, as we have seen with the door and the fence, proposals are coming for more security operations in this part of the Palace, and one of the areas that is going to be addressed is the point that the noble Lord raised.

My Lords, the Senior Deputy Speaker has faced several questions on this, but quite a number of them come back to the question of who makes decisions in this place. What are the lines of accountability? Is there a line of accountability through the Clerk of the Parliaments and, in this case, the clerk of the other place, as accounting officers, or is it through Members? Would it be possible for him to succinctly explain how this works and how decisions are made, and who therefore checks on these matters? There is a real danger that things will fall between matters for the administration and matters for Members—who is saying that Members want this?—and all those things.

The noble Lord makes a very valid point; this is something that has troubled me for some time. On the particular matter of the Peers’ Entrance, the project business case has undergone a process of standard professional scrutiny. The clerks of both Houses ultimately scrutinised and approved those costs following advice from the investment committee, which is chaired by the two finance directors of both Houses. As a result of what has happened, going forwards the Finance Committee in this House, which has received up-to-date reports on major programmes, will be asked to supplement its work with enhanced scrutiny of both costs and performance on a quarterly basis. I would say, however, as I am very close to my colleague, that the Clerk of the Parliaments is the accounting officer and legal officer, and in the end the responsibility is directly in his hands.

My Lords, last week when we were discussing this issue I made a silly mistake. I suggested that the wretched front entrance had cost as much as Grenfell Tower. I am sorry; I completely misread the briefing that I was given. I do not feel comfortable leaving such a silly comparison like that uncorrected on the record, so I hope that the Senior Deputy Speaker and the whole House will accept my apology for such a silly error on such a serious issue.

My Lords, I think the House takes that in the spirit and the manner in which the noble Lord made those remarks. Both, in their way, are serious. Obviously, the tragedy of what happened in Grenfell Tower remains with us always, but clearly the security imperative of protecting everyone in this Palace is also paramount. We need to ensure that it is value for money and that the wretched thing then works.

My Lords, previously I said, slightly tongue in cheek, that going for the best is often a problem in terms of protection. There is a real risk of going for more and more to protect us, but in the final analysis we cannot totally protect everyone. We talk about looking at where goods will be held, but that is going to cost another £10 million to £15 million. We have to be really careful; do we really need these things? I am afraid there is an element of risk that we all have to take, and that is part of life.

The noble Lord makes a powerful point. Clearly, there is always an important balance between access and security; they are key considerations as we as parliamentarians, and others who work here, need to do our work. We need to reflect on this area, and, particularly regarding the Peers’ Entrance, on the balance between security, access and users who seek to use the entrance.