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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The writer is director of the Victoria and Albert Museum and a former MP
The Palace of Westminster was always conceived as a work of art. For its architects, Augustus Pugin and Charles Barry, the Gothic Revival aesthetic was part of an attempt to co-opt Gothicism as the national style. The faux-medieval interiors — from the curtains to the carpets to the chamber of the House of Lords — were executed as a cohesive design.
As the palace developed during the 19th century, the great fresco decorations were added, telling a Whiggish story of constitutional progress. Then came the statues of great men (and, finally, women) before a proper acquisitions policy allowed the parliamentary art holdings to grow into a world-class collection of furniture, decorative arts and sculpture — including, for instance, recent works by Grayson Perry and Jonathan Yeo.
But after decades of neglect, that is now at risk. A brief walk through the Commons and Lords reveals the state of disrepair: the stench of damp, an army of rats and mice, falling masonry, the perennial risk of fire and general air of grotty decay — as well as the hidden risks of asbestos and imploding mechanical and electrical infrastructure.
It is hard to over-emphasise just how poorly parliamentarians have handled the chronic need for restoration — it is beginning to make the HS2 rail project look like a model of good governance.
In October 2012, a pre-feasibility study found that “fundamental renovation can no longer be avoided”. A 2015 independent options report urged the “complete decant” of MPs and peers as the swiftest solution, at the time cost at £4bn. In 2016, the Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster described “an impending crisis which we cannot responsibly ignore”.
The result was the creation of a sponsor body for restoration and renewal. In 2022, plans for an “essential scheme” were put forward with a price tag of £7-13bn and a 12-year-plus vacation of the palace. Alternatively, with MPs still working in the building, it would cost £22bn and last 76 years. At which point the sponsor body was swiftly dissolved and the entire process came to a juddering halt.
With a general election looming, now is the time for cross-party action to restore the fabric of Westminster and safeguard so many great works of British art and design — before parliament repeats its own history and, as in 1834, goes up in flames. We need to begin by introducing some terms and conditions for incoming MPs. I have sat in the Commons chamber — its intimacy and vibrancy is sensational. After all those hours of door-knocking and being hounded on social media, I understand why MPs are loath to give it up for a sterile hall in the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre. But unless they agree to vacate the historic chamber, we will never see change.
Then the money. At a time of highly restricted public funds, spending on a Victorian debating chamber is politically untenable. Just as during the Olympics, the Heritage Lottery Fund created a dedicated distribution fund for underwriting the 2012 Games, so there is a case for a specific carve-out for renewing parliament, with, say, a 20-year allocation of lottery funds.
We should approach the restoration of Westminster as an opportunity. UK politics needs a symbolic shift. There is the psychological benefit for our sadly reviled MPs of changing spaces and work patterns for a while. There is the opportunity to exhibit these great art collections in unexpected settings — open to the public as never before. And then there are all the skills in carpentry, masonry, fabric conservation, electrics and plumbing that the project will require.
Parliament has a responsibility to itself, and to the collection it holds in trust for the nation, to stop dodging the decision to restore the palace. Maybe, just maybe, it could be ready for the 2034 bicentenary of the last burning down.
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