Rowan Moore (“Parliament is falling down”, the New Review) raises the spectre of a devastating Notre Dame-style fire at the Houses of Parliament. There is an important difference. The Notre Dame fire started, alas like many others in historic buildings, when the builders were in. It rapidly took hold, consuming the roof timbers and melting the lead.
At Westminster, Sir Charles Barry, the architect, was extremely conscious of the fire that had consumed the old Houses of Parliament in 1834 and gave the new building a fire-resistant, cast-iron roof structure and covering.
More importantly, this entire roof has been repaired and renewed, using 80% of Barry’s cast-iron tiles. This important work was completed on time and on budget at a cost of £80m earlier this year. Yet this is rarely mentioned amid the billions quoted for restoration and renewal.
The urgent task is to replace ageing and outdated cabling and services in the basement. Yet this was postponed while extravagant plans were drawn up for hugely expensive new temporary chambers for both the Commons and the Lords. These appear to have been set aside and both Houses should quickly move to existing temporary accommodation in Church House and the spacious 600-seat conference chamber at the QEII Centre opposite Westminster Abbey or in an adapted Royal Gallery in the Palace of Westminster.
Latest figures show that more than £200m has been spent on consultants’ fees. Parliament will get better results if it adopts a more frugal approach. MPs and peers should take note that consultants’ fees are usually related to the cost of the eventual project so they have an incentive to opt for a more expensive solution.
Marcus Binney, executive president
Save Britain’s Heritage
London EC1
Art is for everyone
Why is it acceptable for Dominic Raab to traduce Angela Rayner and, by association, Glyndebourne (“Artistic director ‘shocked’ by sneers at Rayner’s opera visit”, News)? Three cheers for Rayner and all the other MPs who are erudite and able to appreciate that great art is for everyone with ears to hear and who are not populist, cloth-eared ignoramuses like Raab.
Michael Fuller
Harpenden, Hertfordshire
Nuclear reaction
In his excellent article on the plight of the Minsmere reserve in Suffolk in the face of EDF’s plan to build a nuclear reactor, Sizewell C, next door (“Will new nuclear plant soon loom over haven where harriers, avocets and bitterns fly free?”, News), Robin McKie refers to Hinkley Point C. Here in Somerset, EDF is struggling to build a reactor with 6,000 workers, soon ramping up to 8,500. This is a last desperate throw of the dice in the face of a shocking underestimate of the complexity of the construction.
Numbers matter as the strain these extra people put on local resources causes them to buckle. Property prices are rocketing. Where else would you find a town like Bridgwater with 40,000 residents and seven new hotels? What will happen to those hotels when the workforce shrinks to the bare 900 required to run Hinkley C? EDF says it will learn lessons from building Hinkley C when it goes to Sizewell. Funny, that’s exactly what it said it would do at Hinkley, learning from its ill-fated Flamanville project in France. Sadly, the lessons are that the reactor will be massively over budget and terminally delayed. It’s not just the birds at Minsmere that will suffer if Sizewell C goes ahead.
Roy Pumfrey, Stop Hinkley spokesperson
Cannington, Bridgwater
Age-old problem
The British population has not suddenly aged over the weekend (“Welcome to ageing Britain”, Focus). Life expectancy has been increasing steadily for well over a hundred years. Governments of all stripes have had at least two generations to prepare for this demographic change but have failed to do so, preferring to try to ingratiate themselves with the electorate by way of tax cuts and other policies designed to gain short-term political advantage. Had Britain invested in productive capacity over the last 75 years, our productivity would now match that of Germany and France and we would not be in this dire situation.
Chris Waller
Badgeworth, Bristol
Where is Blair on Brexit?
As someone with massive respect for Tony Blair, I find it difficult to understand his current position on Brexit (“So the arguments over Brexit are done and dusted for a generation. Really, Tony?”, Comment). As Andrew Rawnsley wrote in relation to Scotland’s 2014 independence referendum: “The tightness of the 55-45 result meant that the question was bound to remain a live one.”
At the time of the 2016 Brexit referendum, Blair’s well-argued, clear advice to remain in the EU was also the advice of every other former prime minister. Voters, narrowly with a 52-48 result, chose to ignore this advice, wanting to believe the promises of the leave campaign, fronted by Boris Johnson.
Voters are generally pragmatists regarding their financial self interest: if a mistake has been made, they would wish to correct it as soon as possible. Polls indicate a trend of increasing percentages believing Brexit to have been a mistake.
The Blair Institute has undertaken valuable analysis of the impact of Brexit, indicating a hit of £30bn a year to the public finances. The UK simply cannot afford to sustain such a hit. As Will Hutton so powerfully argues, a fundamental change of course is an imperative.
David Newens
Great Linford, Milton Keynes
Buckinghamshire
Our blueprint for GPs
Your editorial summarises the terrible situation in general practice: declining numbers and declining passion for the role, with poorer outcomes for all (“A dearth of GPs is threatening the country’s health”). We in Doctors in Unite, part of Unite, have recently published our charter to revitalise general practice. This requires a party in government committed to re-instating the NHS as a public service, ending commercialisation and fragmentation, and abandoning public sector cuts.
We want to see practices with a wide primary care team, covering about 10,000 patients, within neighbourhood health committees. Each neighbourhood, with doctors qualified in both primary care and public health, would work with community development workers empowering communities to collectively address local health issues. We want improved working conditions for GPs, career progression and finite working days. We must ensure access proportionate to patient need, reversing the current position, with support for continuity of care. Let’s make the job of general practice attractive to patients and practices again – it would transform our NHS.
Brian Fisher, Doctors in Unite
London SE14
Don’t blame us, Nick
Often I keep Nick Cohen’s astutely analytical columns, but was saddened (and irritated) by the implication that the over-65s are responsible for this pathetic excuse for a government (“‘All in it together’? Even that pretence has gone – sacrifice is now for the workers”, Comment). I’m pushing 82, a homeowner, opera lover, Waitrose woman (shared worker profits) and voting Tory is anathema, as it is to most of my friends and acquaintances. They fight for the rights of refugees, for a proper living wage, work in charity shops and go on NHS, remain and environmental marches. Message to Nick: we are concerned altruists.
Jan Mortimer
Lewes, East Sussex
