Ah parliamentary renovation: they talk of little else in the Red Wall. For more than a decade now, Westminster has been obsessed with the subject of our crumbling Commons, with staff forced to dodge falling masonry, leaking pipes and impudent rodents as they navigate the estate. Last month, Dame Meg Hillier of the Public Accounts Committee warned that there was an ‘unacceptable cloak of secrecy’ around the ongoing restoration programme. And perhaps we now know why. For figures were published yesterday which show that some £216.5 million was spent on the Restoration and Renewal Programme between spring 2020 and March 2022. The total forecast spend for the current financial year is £87 million total. Yikes.
Still, that’s not the only issue troubling the great and the not-so-good in SW1. Mr S reported last week that staff were spending £12,000 a week on 11 traffic marshals, the annual equivalent of £59,506 per person. Their presence has greatly irritated some on the estate, who complain they serve little or no purpose. Such criticisms are not just limited to staff, with multiple questions being tabled in the House of Lords about the officious orange-clad apparatchiks. Responding to Lord Robathan’s queries about their level of qualifications, Lord Gardiner retorted that the marshals have ‘a minimum of one day practical training’ but conceded that ‘the team do not have legal authority to stop vehicles.’ It remains to be seen whether they will actually improve standards, with three traffic accidents causing injuries on the estate last year. They include one poor soul being thwacked by a lowering security barrier and multiple vehicles reversing over people’s feet.
Good to see it’s all going swimmingly in parliament eh?
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