Parliamentary roadshow
On 15 October 2021, Sir David Amess, MP for Southend West, was fatally stabbed at his constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea.
The anniversary of this tragic event was marked yesterday at Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons. Unaware of this, I happened to be walking past the Houses of Parliament and was appalled to see the new 3-metre high security fence being erected along the perimeter of the House of Lords' forecourt, extending up to the Soverereign's Entrance of the Victoria Tower. This latest work adds to the railings, fences, gates and barriers already in place that began to be installed following the death of Airey Neave MP, whose car was blown up by an IRA bomb as he drove out of the Palace of Westminster underground car park in 1979.
Additional works were carried out following the 2017 terrorist attack, when a car was driven into the Victorian railings and the driver ran into New Palace Yard, fatally stabbing a police officer. The resulting works were ugly and intrusive but have got progressively worse over time, with seemingly ad hoc additions of railings, concrete traffic barriers and 'raise arm' gates - all of which visually blight what is, after all, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
As a result of this arguably excessive caution, the former relatively open access has become more and more restricted so that now the Houses of Parliament begin to resemble a high security prison. The former St Stephen's entrance to the central lobby has long been closed, with visitors having to go via a circuitous route involving airport-style security screening before entering Westminster Hall. I remember using St Stephen's entrance on several occasions to lobby my MP, being subjected only to a cursory bag check by a policeman and woman before being waved through. Alas, no longer.
How can we claim to live in an open democracy when the locus of that democracy, the so-called 'Mother of Parliaments', is practically impenetrable to British citizens and tourists alike? That is the dilemma facing government nowadays, at every level from local town halls to Westminster, as it juggles accessibility with its duty of care. Of course, the personal security of our elected (or, in the case of the Lords, unelected) representatives must be assured but if that can only be achieved by effectively isolating them from the electorate perhaps it's time for a serious rethink of how we conduct our politics.
I can also remember when Downing Street was freely accessible before being gated in 1989 and it is highly unlikely they will ever be removed. As far as the Palace of Westminster is concerned, my starting point to restoring open access (and I have written about this before) would be to stop using it as a parliamentary building immediately. To facilitate this, the Lords should be abolished, obviating the need for their relocation, and MPs decanted to the nearby Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, which is owned by the government and was suggested as a temporary home for the Lords for the duration of proposed and long-overdue refurbishment of the crumbling Palace.
Charging entry to the premises as a museum, once emptied of politicians and parliamentary staff, would raise funds for a phased programme of structural conservation and upgrading whilst removing the embarrassment of spending ten billion pounds or more of public money on making their accommodation fit for purpose, with all the accusations of nest-feathering that would entail. The adjacent QECC is spacious, modern and secure and once the move was complete all the hideous modern security paraphernalia could be removed from the historic Palace.
Ultimately our parliament should move out of London but, for now, across the road would do.