OK, the building is in a bit of a mess, but how could you produce a piece entitled “Ailing parliament needs a breath of fresh air” (Editorial, 4 September) without making reference to the electoral system and the anachronism of an unelected second chamber? Consideration of where parliament sits must include who serves and how they are elected to it, regardless of the address. Perhaps then the idea of re-siting, or at the very least rotating, the institution would be taken more seriously, rather than being dismissed in a few lines as if neither telephones nor trains exist.
Les Bright
Exeter
• The claim that parliament cannot move out of London because ministers are tethered to Whitehall surely misses the point. The biggest prize would come from moving Whitehall itself. This would not only produce significant financial savings, but could also materially change civil service thinking. If the Department for Transport was to move to a regional city, the current 10:1 imbalance in transport investment that so favours London at the expense of the rest of the country would quickly disappear. Put the DfT in Sheffield, Derby or Nottingham, and the ridiculous decision to scrap Midland main line electrification would be reversed overnight.
Allan Dare
Cromford, Derbyshire
• Once again your advice about the Palace of Westminster misses the point that it is not just the MPs and the peers (all 1,500 of them) who have to be moved to suitable debating chambers. There is a large number of supporting staff – librarians, catering and security staff, MPs’ secretarial staff – who have to be moved as well. Parliament is not just people making fine speeches, but working with the help of a dedicated staff. It is a workplace for a lot of people. It is the difficulty of finding alternative accommodation for these 5,000 people which is the challenge. It may sound foolishly conservative or romantic, but not moving is the least bad option. Any refurbishment with or without MPs will overrun its finishing date and its estimated cost by a factor of two or three. We may as well save ourselves the trouble of moving as well.
Meghnad Desai
Labour, House of Lords
• Renovating is a waste of money and will be inefficient for MPs. Keeping the exterior could keep romantics happy and still enable a new interior, as with the Bundestag. This would be a statement of the intention to move Britain forward after Brexit. Britain needs much renovation of its infrastructure – let’s start here.
David Burton
Avry-sur-Matran, Switzerland
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