House of Lords To Move To QEII Centre While Parliament Restored

QEII Centre (Credit: Pixhall / Alamy Stock Photo)

5 min read03 July

The House of Lords is set to move to the QEII Centre while Parliament is restored, no matter which option for the estate’s restoration is eventually voted for by MPs, PoliticsHome can reveal.

A group of MPs, peers and parliamentary officials tasked with deciding the future of Parliament’s restoration confirmed at a meeting on Monday that the QEII Centre will now be prepared to accommodate the House of Lords.

“It was only yesterday that we formally agreed that the Lords will move out and go to the QEII Centre at some point under any option,” said a member of the Client Board present at the meeting.

“So [we need to] get on with all that, because that's going to take quite a while, and the timescale is very prolonged anyway, even if you move as quickly as you can.”

Another board member said Restoration and Renewal teams would begin survey and building maintenance work on both the QEII Centre as well as the Northern Estate part of Parliament, in the eventuality that parliamentarians move to either location while the building is renovated.

“The Achilles heel in all this is even if we get it over the line and agree to move out, if you've got nowhere to go to, or it takes too long to go to, then that's pushing you back, isn't it? It's bad enough already,” they said.

There are currently four options tabled for Parliament’s restoration: a full decant from the Palace; a partial decant where the House of Lords moves out of the estate; and ‘enhanced maintenance’ and ‘enhanced maintenance +’ (also known as ‘business as usual’ and ‘business as usual+’), both of which would see MPs and peers remain on site while work continued around them.

By committing to “preparatory work” on the QEII Centre, the source said both houses remaining on site while work was underway had been ruled out “by default”.

“No formal decision to that effect was taken, but by agreeing to spend money on the QEII, the enhanced maintenance option under which the Commons Chamber was always used – which was one of the enhanced maintenance options – that's been implicitly ruled out.”

A UK Parliament spokesperson said that ”no final decision has been taken regarding the potential use of the QEII centre and any future decisions will be informed by discussions with the government, who own the freehold.”

All options will come before the Client Board in November, along with detailed proposals of what these preparatory works would consist of.

While parliamentarians will be able to vote on their preferred option later this year, the source said several board members had argued to reduce the number of options that could be voted on.

“There were quite a number of voices, including one or two from the House of Commons commission, saying that we really had to narrow down the options at the very least, and arguably, opt for one.”

PoliticsHome understands that Baroness Smith, Leader of the House of Lords, is in favour of a full decant, and expressed this view at the meeting.

While Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has been pushing for parliamentarians to stay on the estate while work continued, the board member claimed his authority is waning.

“Mr Speaker has exercised a very, very strong malign influence, and in the Commons, nobody has wanted to stand up to him, and it's difficult to stand up to him from the Lords,” they said.

“I got a sense on Monday that his position isn't quite as strong as it was, because it's a new group of MPs on the House of Commons commission, and his arguments were frankly ridiculous.”

A UK Parliament spokesperson said: “The Speaker of the House of Commons has always made it clear that it is for Members to decide which option they wish to pursue. As co-chair of the Client Board, his role is to facilitate discussion on Restoration and Renewal to ensure Members have all the information required ahead of a decision on a preferred way forward.”

Fully decanting from Parliament is currently thought to be the cheapest and fastest approach to renovating the estate, taking between 12 and 20 years at a cost of between £7bn and £13bn.

The partial decant or ‘continued presence’ option pegs restoration costs at a similar level to fully decanting, at between £9.5bn and £18.5bn. It is thought this option would take between 26 to 43 years.

Both Houses remaining in situ while works were ongoing – the business as usual approach – is thought to be the most expensive and longest option, taking 46 to 76 years at a cost of between £11bn and £22bn.

The Lord Speaker Lord McFall, who co-Chairs the R&R Client Board with Sir Lindsay said: ‘I chaired the private meeting of the R&R Client Board on Monday 30 June. I do not recognise the account given of the discussions held and I am dismayed that any participant would seek to comment to the media about a private committee meeting. Like Mr Speaker, my role is to facilitate discussion on Restoration and Renewal to ensure Members have all the information required ahead of a decision on a preferred way forward."

Alex Meakin, politics lecturer at the University of Leeds, said: ”After ministers in the previous governments intervened to block Parliament's use of the QEII, it is a huge relief that sense has prevailed and the Lords can decant to a convenient nearby location during the overdue and essential repairs to the Palace.”