Royal High School (Hansard, 7 July 1993)

§ 1. Mr. Raymond S. Robertson
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he expects the Crown Office to vacate the old Royal High school in Edinburgh; and what plans he has for the future use of the building.

§ The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Ian Lang)
The Crown Office is expected to vacate the old Royal High school at the beginning of 1994. The building is the responsibility of Property Holdings, which is currently considering its future.

§ Mr. Robertson
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, given that the Crown Office is leaving the old Royal High school, that it costs £150,000 per annum to maintain and keep secure, and that it was used only three times last year, surely the time has come for the Government to dispose of the building, which has become a monument to and a relic of the failed and discredited policy of the Labour party? Does he furthermore agree that it would make an ideal art gallery or museum of Scottish history?

§ Mr. Lang
The building is not the direct responsibility of the Scottish Office, but the developments that I have just described show the need for the Government to consider where future meetings of the Scottish Grand Committee —if and when in Edinburgh—should take place. There is no shortage of alternative buildings in Edinburgh.

§ Mr. Canavan
Would not it be in everyone's best interests if the Scottish Parliament moved into the old high school building? The Crown Office team could move across the road to the ministerial suite at the Scottish Office, and the ministerial team at the Scottish Office could be evicted to the top of Leith walk, where I am sure there is a convenient phone box big enough to hold them and their dwindling band of supporters in Scotland.

§ Mr. Lang
If the hon. Gentleman has given us a glimpse of the Labour party's manifesto for the next general election, I look forward to that campaign.

§ Mr. Tom Clarke
Does the Secretary of State recall that three quarters of the Scottish people voted for a Scottish Parliament, and would much prefer that that Parliament met in the Royal High school? Would not it be outrageous if the Government's profiteering dogma led to that building being used for any other purpose? Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the Scottish people would much prefer their elected representatives to discuss, for example, their local government than to have policies handed down to them in dribs and drabs by leaked documents in a thoroughly unacceptable way?

§ Mr. Lang
The Royal High school was built as a school —it may have been an appropriate design for a school in its day—but the building has no special significance as regards the deliberations of the House or its Committee. If it stands as anything, perhaps it is as a monument to the folly of the last Labour Government who, in anticipation of the outcome of a referendum and of a subsequent general election, spent hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money and subsequently found themselves rejected in a referendum and a general election.