Letter of the week
It’s time for Parliament
WAS delighted to read Athena on February 22. Shortly after I was appointed Clerk of the House and chief executive of the House of Commons in 2011, my Lords opposite number and I commissioned the first comprehensive condition survey of the Palace of Westminster. I felt passionately that we could not be yet another generation of stewards of this magnificent building who avoided our responsibilities. The survey’s principal conclusion was that doing nothing was not an option; yet here we are, more than a decade later, and the main activity seems to have been establishing the project’s governance, changing it, then changing it again. Even doing nothing costs millions a month and the risk
