SO the long awaited report on the state of the British Parliament building has found that it is not fit for purpose or to put it another way, it’s going to cost a fortune to repair it at the taxpayers’ expense.

I have always said that the Houses of Parliament are not fit for purpose; I would suggest that they are closed down and turned it into a museum which the public could be asked for subscriptions to its upkeep; also, the 1% of the population that has been served so well by it and of course the banks and industry could be asked to find the money as well as the National Lottery.

A new parliament building, fit for purpose, could then be built at public expense and moved somewhere out of London, to the powerhouse of the North for example.

A new building could be built far more quickly than trying to modernise the present Parliament buildings.

We are told that the work could commence in 2020 but of course we must have a committee to look into this and get paid a fortune for doing so. I would suggest that by 2020 we could build a brand-new Parliament if we had politicians with the vision to do it; sadly we don’t.

I keep suggesting that the public write to their MPs and tell them whether they are in favour of keeping this monstrosity as our Parliament or would it be better to have a modern and efficient building. No, they prefer to keep archaic customs in place around the Palace wasting money.

IOur Prime Minister, along with his Chancellor, is very good at saying that you fix the roof when the sun shines while the politicians can’t even fix their own roof.

Ian Greenhalgh

Smithills