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Mr. Tyler: I entirely understand the severity of the problems that the Leader of the House and the Commission face. I did not have the exclusive briefing, as I am not a Privy Councillor, but I understand from the briefing that I received that the earliest time at which a permanent screen could be erected would be the summer recess of 2005, at a cost of £1.5 million. Why, after just four days' experience of the temporary screen, are we rushing to take a decision that cannot be implemented for 15 months?
We take this issue seriously, and this is the point of our amendment. For goodness' sake, let us look at the matter sensibly and in a comprehensive way in terms of the risk to all those who come into the parliamentary estate—not just those who come into this Chamber. Let us ensure that the issue is considered in security terms. Two of the three reasons that the Leader of the House has just given for putting up a permanent screen rather
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than allowing the temporary one to be assessed sensibly are aesthetic; they have nothing to do with security. I want time to think very carefully about the comprehensive security of the whole of the parliamentary estate in the interests of all who come here and work here, rather than just of those who come into this Chamber.
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire) (Con): Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman. If we are to have a permanent screen, it will have to be ordered and fabricated. The Commission has been advised that that would take about 15 months.
Mr. Tyler: That is yet another reason to get it right.
I want to move to another point, which might seem trivial but it illustrates my argument. I take it, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that this is one occasion on which we must be allowed to refer to the geography, the architecture, of this place. We are not usually allowed to do so. I would ask all hon. Members to look up at the Strangers Gallery for a moment. One hon. Member, who has the same biblical background as I do, referred earlier to sheep and goats. I would refer, perhaps, to first-class and standard visitors. Those who are permitted to sit in front of the screen will be the first-class visitors. They will get a special dispensation because they can be vouched for as reputable. The fact that the permanent screen would be on the same alignment as this temporary screen means not only that we lose 30 seats but that the preferential seats, the first-class seats, would often be unoccupied, while visitors in standard class would be sitting on top of one another.
I invite colleagues to consider these circumstances. A constituent whom an hon. Member does not know terribly well might say, "Please get me two tickets for the Gallery". The hon. Member might think, "Wait a minute, I'm not sure that I know this pair. They are both reputable members of the women's institute, but I don't actually know them. They might be suffragettes. I don't think I'll take the risk. I think I'll put them in standard class." In no time, there will be a new parliamentary expression, "behind the screen", which will mean some of our electors being treated as second-class citizens.
Mr. Tyler: Behind the screen will equal cattle class. Imagine the circumstances! I understand from those who know everything about this place—that is, the Doorkeepers—that the only recent incidents of any significance in the House have taken place at the front of the Gallery. At present, the front of the Gallery tends to contain very distinguished people, including Members of the other place and diplomats, but that is not exclusively the case. So, if the permanent screen is installed on the same alignment as the present one, the checking of who goes into which section of the Gallery will cause difficulties.
Mr. Simon:
I should like to correct the hon. Gentleman. The most recent incident took place behind the screen this afternoon, but we could not hear it because it was behind the screen.
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Mr. Tyler: That is a very valid point.
I want to illustrate my argument further, because this checking has already started. This week, hon. Members have had to vouch for visitors in order to get them a seat in front of the screen. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), who unfortunately cannot be here this afternoon, sought entry for his 80-year-old aunt. Imagine if, after a lifetime's ambition to come to the House, he did not feel able to vouch for her safety in this place. She might, for all I know, be a latter-day suffragette or a dangerous liberal. Who knows? But the way in which this issue is currently approached will not satisfy our constituents that all those who elect us to come here are being treated as equals.
The facilities for Members to show constituents around this place were referred to earlier, and that is an important issue. If we were able to strike a deal that no permanent arrangement would be made until we had better facilities to bring our constituents round and to show them democracy at work, that might be a trade-off that we could accept. The motion as it stands would push through, at speed and with no real experience of the new arrangements, a permanent structure that has all sorts of implications for the perception of this place as a parliamentary democracy open to those who send us here.
Peter Bradley (The Wrekin) (Lab): The hon. Gentleman makes a number of points with which I have some sympathy. He rightly draws our attention to his amendment, and I would like him to clarify it further. Its effect would be that we could not erect a permanent screen, but it says nothing about dismantling the temporary screen, which would then, de facto, become the permanent screen.
Mr. Tyler: I had to take the advice of the House authorities on this matter. As I understood it, the motion on the Order Paper simply referred to the permanent screen. Strictly speaking, the temporary screen is not on the Order Paper. All that I am saying, in what I think is an entirely logical response to the point made by the Leader of the House, is that the comprehensive reassessment of all the security arrangements of the House should take into account the efficacy of this temporary screen. That seems to be a perfectly common-sense approach, yet it is being dismissed out of hand as though it were irrelevant to the overall comprehensive assessment.
Mr. Evans : I want to make a practical point. We do not recognise anyone in the Strangers Gallery, on either side of the screen, at the moment. To pluck a figure out of the air, if 14 youngsters from my constituency asked to come here, the chances are that I would ask for tickets for them to sit in front of the screen, without perhaps knowing all 14 of them, because I would not want the embarrassment of putting them the other side of the screen. Is that not the kind of weakness that terrorists look for?
Mr. Tyler:
There is real problem if a representative democracy starts to differentiate between one constituent and another. We could get rid of that problem if a scheme were developed to screen off the
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whole of the Gallery, but I think that our noble Friends from the other end of the building would be worried if they thought that we were suspicious of them.
Mr. Marshall-Andrews: I have a great deal of sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and I for one will support his amendment and vote against the motion, if that becomes necessary. May I just ask him how we will be able to test the efficacy of this screen? What test will we apply? If there is no terrorist outrage in the course of the next year, will we say that it is a success, and that therefore we ought to have a permanent one? That is what worries me. We should start on the basis that it will go.
Mr. Tyler: The hon. and learned Gentleman is absolutely right, and that is what is extraordinary about presenting us with a fait accompli. We have nothing on paper to explain precisely why it is there. I think that the Leader of the House wants to intervene, but before I invite him to do so, I shall sum up this point: we are being asked to do something very difficult this afternoon, and there is a genuine dilemma. I want to return to the issue of the security context in which this decision should be taken.
Mr. Hain: I have intervened on the hon. Gentleman on a number of occasions, but it helps the debate to do it in this way. He says that there is a fait accompli. It is the duty of the House authorities, and in this case the House of Commons Commission, to look after the security of the Chamber and the whole Palace. In this exceptional situation, unlike that when we returned after one recess and found armed guards in place, and when there was no debate on the Floor of the House—which made access more difficult for many people—we are having an open debate, and it is not a fait accompli. The hon. Gentleman made a great populist point about first and second-class visitors. It is the case now that a visitor queuing in the street cannot get into the Special Gallery but must sit in the area that is now behind the screen.
Another point that the hon. Gentleman needs to address is that the recommendation from the Security Service was not for a screen going right the way round the Special Gallery and Press Gallery—[Interruption.] It was not, and I shall explain why in a minute. On that logic—
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