THE NEW WAR OFFICE—QUESTION. (Hansard, 4 April 1856)

§ SIR BENJAMIN HALL

in reply said, that a short time ago he received a communication from the War Department, stating that they desired to have a new building erected in Pall Mall, on the site of the present Buckingham House and some houses between that mansion and the Ordnance Office. Remembering what occurred in that House last year, he though it better to communicate with the Treasury upon the matter; and, as it showed his views upon the subject, which had been sanctioned by the Government, he would read an extract from his letter. In that letter he said— I desire, however, to call your Lordships' attention to the following fact. When a Vote was proposed last year of £90,000 for new public offices in Downing Street the House was of opinion that it would be desirable to have a much larger plan for new Offices than that which was then proposed, and that all the public departments should be concentrated as much as possible, and instead of voting £90,000 the amount was reduced to £40,000, on the understanding that £30,000 should be expended in the purchase of the site then proposed to be taken, and £10,000 in such repairs as were absolutely necessary in the existing Offices, which were considered to be in a very bad condition. I am quite prepared to lay before Parliament a plan for taking all the ground which lies between Downing Street on the north and Great George Street on the South, and Parliament Street on the east and St. James's Park on the west, if your Lordships should approve my so doing. But this ground can only be obtained in the usual way—by notices given in the autumn, and a Bill in the House in the spring. The point suggested for the consideration of their Lordships was whether the wants of the War Department were urgent, or might stand over until this concentration of Offices could be carried out. In case of the wants being urgent, he suggested the propriety of obtaining a surrender of the lease of Montague House and its grounds from the Duke of Buccleuch; and he concluded his letter with an expression 467 of his opinion that the proposed site in Pall Mall was too contracted, and that it was most desirable to concentrate all the departments as much as possible in one part of the metropolis, which should not be far from the Houses of Parliament. The course which he was now prepared to take was, in a short time to more for a Select Committee to consider the expediency of obtaining a site for the concentration of the Public Offices in the neighbourhood of Downing Street. If the Committee should recommend, and the House should sanction such a plan, he should then be prepared to give notice in the autumn for the purpose of acquiring the property by means of an Act of Parliament. He should further propose that, as the buildings to be erected would be of a national character, the competition for their design should be thrown open to the architects not only of England but of the whole world, in order that we might at last have some public building worthy of the metropolis.