Restoration and Renewal

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:57 pm on 16 July 2020.

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Photo of Meg Hillier Meg Hillier Chair, Public Accounts Committee, Chair, Public Accounts Committee 3:57, 16 July 2020

Or the garden bridge, indeed. Only £30 million of taxpayers’ money went through the Department for Transport to the garden bridge, so that was a relatively cheap proposal by the current Prime Minister. We need to be careful: it is very easy, and very much a tactic of the current incumbent at No. 10, Boris Johnson, to throw out a random thought and let everyone talk about that, and meanwhile we stop talking about the real issue: that this place needs to be sorted, and it needs to be sorted now.

I turn to the Leader of the House again and ask him who is responsible if someone gets injured or hurt. Who would be responsible for asbestos poisoning in this place? I think it would end up being the Clerk of the House and the corporate body of the House of Commons. That means that the Leader of the House is sitting there and everyone is waiting for the musical chairs to stop, hoping that they will not be standing at the moment when a disaster happens in this House.