Orders of the Day — Child Care Facilities (House of Commons)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 7:02 pm on 12 January 1995.

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Photo of George Mudie George Mudie Opposition Whip (Commons) 7:02, 12 January 1995

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention as it gave me time to calm down. I would urge the approach described by the hon. Lady on the Leader of the House and the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed.

The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed ended by asking us for our views. He wanted to know what we thought should be done. The first thing that the Commission should do is to tell my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) and his colleagues that one priority is not enough when one is doing a job: more than one priority can be handled. It is not good enough for the Accommodation and Works Committee to say that its priority is that every hon. Member should have an office to himself or herself and, until that is settled, it will not do anything else.

The sting is in the tail if we listen closely to the hon. Member for Edgbaston. The Accommodation and Works Committee's priority takes us to the end of the century. Once that objective is reached, we know what will happen. Members' allowances will mean that there will be more staff in the House. It is no longer sufficient to have one secretary's desk; one needs one or, possibly, two researchers' desks as well.

The dinosaurs in this building always have an excuse. It would be better, if the dinosaurs will not give way, to consider the capital works programme on the Floor of the House. All the money is not being spent on Members and their secretaries—far from it. Some very interesting money is being spent. I shall spare some blushes in the Chamber and in the building by not going into detail. Details would be—[Interruption.] I shall give one example.

Why do we intend to spend a vast amount of public money moving the gentlemen's hairdresser from one side of the corridor to the other? Have hon. Members ever seen a queue in that barber's shop? If they have, they are at the wrong end of the building. The man is feared. I have parliamentary privilege, I hope. He is feared. I shall never go to him for a haircut—I have not gone to him for a haircut. We are going to spend that money when we say that we cannot find money for a nursery. We are going to build a plush new hairdressing salon—it is not even going to be unisex; it will be a gentlemen's salon—on the other side of the corridor.