§ MR. RADCLIFFE COOKE (Newington, W.)asked the honourable Member for North West Staffordshire, Whether the recommendations in the Second Report of the Select Committee on the Ventilation of the House, which said recommendations involve remedial works which the Committee declare it to be urgently necessary to proceed with without delay, inasmuch as
the health of Members of Parliament and of the Officers who reside within the precincts of the Palace at Westminster is seriously imperilled by the defective drainage and sanitary arrangements which now exist in the building,will all or some of them, and, if so, which of them, be carried out between the date of the Dissolution of the present Parliament and the assembling of the new Parliament; and, whether in the Vote on Account it is proposed to include the sum of £13,265, that being the estimated cost of such remedial works?
MR. LEVESON GOWER (A LORD of the TREASURY) (Stafford, N.W.)As I have already stated to the House, orders have been given for the carrying out of those recommendations of the Committee which it was possible to undertake immediately. These works cannot, of course, now be completed, as had been intended, during the Whitsuntide Recess; but they can be carried on when the House is not actually sitting, and will be finished without delay. With regard to the larger operations recommended by the Committee, I have to point out that the Estimates are approximate only, and that the period of two years is stated in the Report as the time that will be required for the execution of the works. The First Commissioner has thought it desirable to obtain more precise information on the question of cost, and he has requested Mr. Shone, the inventor of the system recommended by the Committee, to furnish him with a Report on this subject, and as to how the system, if adopted, could be most 1486 speedily and effectually brought into operation. He hopes to obtain this Report before the Dissolution, and to be in a position to lay a definite statement before the House. As no payment is likely to be made in respect of these works at present, it will be unnecessary to include any special sum in the Vote on Account.