House of Commons club atmosphere has to change

Sir, – Are our MPs’ attitudes and behaviour shaped by the physical surroundings in the Palace of Westminster?

I suppose if you are elected to work in a palace, the grandiloquence of the architecture and so on might have an effect on some members.

But the decades out of date heating and sewage systems are hardly likely to have any influence.

Kezia Dugdale needs to look at the arcane procedures and club atmosphere of the House of Commons, built up over centuries, to explain the matter fully (Courier – May 19).

She might have mentioned, too, the number of bars and dining rooms that help reinforce that essentially white, male dominated ethos.

She could have said something about the links between the ambience of the more prestigious private schools and that of the Westminster legislature.

In some ways it is not surprising that MPs keep putting off passing laws to bring the building into the 21st Century.

Does anyone remember the fiasco over the costs of the Holyrood building which houses the Scottish Parliament? That failure of planning and foresight threatened to destroy the credibility of the devolution project.

Some even suggested that if the costs of over £400 million had been known at the time of the 1997 referendum on devolution, the result might have been different.

I wouldn’t go that far, but the debacle said a lot about our ability to manage public sector projects. Changing the Westminster building set-up would need a lot more efficiency than we have seen in the past.

Changing the often centuries old mind set and traditions of those who represent us there and work in the place will need even more radical solutions.

Bob Taylor.

Shiel Court, Glenrothes.