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Mr. Iain Luke (Dundee, East) (Lab): Will my hon. Friend accept from one who has served on both the Administration Committee and a planning committee on a local authority that those questions were posed during deliberations on the document? Assurances were given that consultation had taken place and that advice had been taken by the appropriate heritage bodies. Although there is no detailed building specification, I am sure that neither of the Committees involved would ever allow us to proceed in the knowledge that there would be abuse of heritage and conservation principles.

Andrew Mackinlay: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Perhaps he can explain to me why paragraph 32 contains a statement on the costs which says:

"This figure does not take into account the effects of inflation or the cost of any additional related security works required once consultations with security and heritage bodies have been completed."

Those have not taken place. I did not write that report, someone else did and I ask them a simple question. The report refers to consultation with the heritage bodies, but that has not yet happened. I am pleased that my hon. Friend raised that matter, because he is a diligent Member and no doubt was a diligent member of his local authority, but I can tell him that when this House asks, it gets conditions laid down and then ignores them. That is why we have those wretched marquees out there, as we speak. They should not be there, and would not be
 
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if we had followed the recommendations—the equivalent of the conditions laid down in a planning consent.

Mr. Tyler: I, too, have planning experience and architectural experience. Has the hon. Gentleman noted that paragraph 27 records "firm objections" from English Heritage to a very modest incursion into Westminster Hall, which is quite insignificant compared with what is proposed in the report? We should anticipate that several bodies will take a close interest in the detailed design of the facilities, and I entirely endorse the hon. Gentleman's view that we must be very careful.

Andrew Mackinlay: To use the vernacular down in Thurrock, too damn right. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Luke), I was referring to paragraph 32, which rather glibly says that the developments will cost approximately £5 million but that there could be extra costs, for example relating to security. That is not the proper way in which to do business. I would not mind if this debate were like a First Reading, or was the first canvass of the ideas. I would welcome that, and say, "Very good." The Minister and relevant Committees could then take cognisance of some of the things said here tonight. However, we are being asked to approve something now and almost to give a blank cheque to the suggestions.

Equally, some Members might say, "That's all very well, Mackinlay, but what are the alternatives?" I recognise that we must address security, which I have acknowledged throughout my speech and earlier. There might well be some palliatives that could be explored. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham has explored some matters that are worthy of consideration as temporary measures. I have made much of the marquees on the Terrace, but my complaint is that they are permanent; that sort of structure erected temporarily in the park adjacent to the Palace might be one possibility. My hon. Friend also rightly said that at some stage we must address ourselves to the wider campus around this place, including Parliament square, and consider whether that could be used. Again, that goes back to the need to look at the issues comprehensively, rather than study this report in isolation. If we had more space at the House's disposal, we could act much more sensitively.

I was going to ask the Deputy Leader of the House this question but, cheekily, I shall ask the whole House: will Members put their hands up if they have ever been in the Jewel Tower? A couple of Members here have, but when I mentioned it to some distinguished hon. Members earlier today, they were aghast and did not know what I was talking about. The Jewel Tower is opposite Parliament. It is run by English Heritage and claims to house a parliamentary exhibition. I revisited it the other day, and was really quite embarrassed. English Heritage charges quite a lot for people to go in there and all there really is to see is Speaker Weatherill's gown—which is very generous of him, to his credit—and the gown worn by the Speaker at the state opening of Parliament. Our present Speaker must have donated that.
 
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Those exhibits are interesting, but aspects of that place relate to this report. First, the exhibition was generally disappointing and embarrassing, and although it is run by English Heritage, I think that that reflects badly on us. Secondly, the report refers to the long-term objective of having a heritage centre. The Jewel Tower does not have a lift in it and never will have, because it was built 1,000 years ago, but it occurred to me that it has some relevance to tonight's debate. We have a shortage of space and some people here—Officers or Members—might be prepared to do an accommodation swap. The tower is not an ideal place for the interpretive centre that we have discussed and it is extremely bland. I hope that you and others trot over there to see it later in the week, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you will share my disappointment. However, there is an opportunity to find some more space there through a trade-off.

If we had control of Parliament square and its roads, that could be used at some stage for many of the facilities referred to in the report, including ticket offices.

Mr. David Lepper (Brighton, Pavilion) (Lab/Co-op): I noted my hon. Friend's earlier comments about English Heritage. Will he clarify the point that he has now made about the Jewel Tower? He and other Members might have had the experience before entering this place of serving on planning committees of local authorities and finding that one problem with English Heritage, wonderful institution though it is, is that it has little concept of buildings as living entities in which people have to work. Therefore, the notion of the Jewel Tower being available as, if I have understood my hon. Friend correctly, office space for staff of this building, seems to be a non-starter so far as English Heritage is concerned.

Andrew Mackinlay: That is for another debate. All that I am telling the House is that there is a building over there that we need to look at in the context of this report. It claims to be a parliamentary exhibition, but it fails in that. If we were looking at this matter in totality—in the round—we could explore such ideas.

Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con): A few moment ago, the hon. Gentleman said to the House that he was being slightly mischievous, so let me be the same. Somewhere at home, my family has a picture of the Houses of Parliament without the spire over Central Lobby. We have that because my mother's kinsman was Charles Barry. This building was originally designed without what is, in fact, a chimney over Central Lobby. There are five floors of empty space up there that are totally unused.

When we came to discuss the televising of this House—in my view, a major mistake—we looked at those five floors, but the heritage bodies said that we could not touch that chimney. It strikes me, as it might also strike my friend, the hon. Gentleman, as extraordinary that we are going down the road tonight of giving in effect carte blanche planning consent, if the motion passes, to a plan that has not been through the heritage bodies, given that they chose not to allow us to use the chimney.

Andrew Mackinlay: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for telling us that story, which illustrates a
 
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fact to which the Minister needs to be sensitive. The House behaves dreadfully on occasion. When it wants to pursue an end selfishly, it will ignore all the ground rules and consultations, but on other occasions it will embrace them. I am not going to sign up to that sort of behaviour. I did not know of that occurrence, but it underscores my point. I am certain that, when I go home tonight, when we have won the debate but lost the vote, I shall reflect on that as something that buttressed my point.

Mr. Simon Thomas (Ceredigion) (PC): The paradox that we face is that the obvious places around the parliamentary estate that we could use not only for visitor facilities but for interpretive facilities for democracy, are out of bounds. Some of us have canvassed Parliament square as a suitable place for politicians and people to meet and hold discussions outside Parliament. Those areas are out of bounds precisely because of the rules, regulations and attitudes of the conservation bodies, including English Heritage, which force us back into the Royal Palace, where we have a free hand to do what we want. However, we are failing in two ways tonight. We are failing to take account of the wider heritage issues and we are not considering this matter as part of a wider strategic review of security.

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