York move ‘is not on Commons agenda’
Speaker says Manchester would be likely location
POLITICS: Moving MPs to York while the Palace of Westminster is refurbished is “great PR” but unlikely to work, with Manchester a better alternative, the Commons Speaker says.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle said he did not think York was “on the agenda for the Commons” despite Boris Johnson saying it could be a temporary location.
MOVING MPS to York while the Palace of Westminster is refurbished is “great PR” but unlikely to work, with Manchester a better alternative, the Commons Speaker has claimed.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle said he did not think York was “on the agenda for the House of Commons” despite Boris Johnson suggesting it could be a temporary location for Parliament.
In a letter earlier this month the Prime Minister said the Government was “considering establishing a Government hub in York and it would therefore make sense to consider this as a potential location”.
It comes amid reports that the city of York is being considered as a potential second centre of government and could be a new permanent home for the Upper
House. But Sir Lindsay said that although York was a “beautiful city” its lack of transport links to other areas of the country such as his native Lancashire would be a problem.
Asked if he would support a potential move to York while the Palace is being refurbished, he joked: “What – being a Lancastrian? That would be outrageous, wouldn’t it? How could a red rose man end up in York?
“The last time we did that was during the war that we managed to win. Maybe this one York would be the spoils of that great war.
“Why don’t you use Lancaster? You know we’ve got a huge castle there. We could move Parliament into there wherever we wanted.
“But I think joking apart, if you were serious about going somewhere else and you want to go to a major city, I think the infrastructure is there, you know, there’s no
better than our second city, Manchester.
“But the reality is you’ve got Manchester, you’ve got Birmingham, you’ve got Leeds.
“We have some major cities and I would have thought if you were serious about location – where’s halfway in the country, who has got the airport in there, who has got the real connections?
“As much as York is on the mainline, it would probably take me longer to go from Chorley to York than what it does from
Chorley to London. That’s just the nature of the railway line, and there’s no immediate airport to it.
“So great PR, yes let’s get people talking about somewhere else other than Parliament, but the reality is at some point we’ve got to come back and discuss what can we do with Parliament, how do we deal with Parliament and the House will have to take that decision. Personally do I think York is on the agenda? No, I don’t think York is on the agenda for the House of Commons.”