The Commons revealed in a documentary series

This year London’s The House of Commons marks 850 years since its creation. As the cockpit of Britain’s democracy, it has sentenced a king to death, witnessed the assignation of a prime minister and declared wars across the globe. But very few people know what Members of Parliament (MPs) really do inside the Commons. Photography is forbidden. And the Commons authorities have resisted permitting documentary cameras film what happens behind the familiar facade. Two years ago for the first time, Parliament’s top people relented, giving me permission to film Inside The Commons, an observational documentary series now being screening on BBC World News, about the Commons and the people who work there. With a 100 staircases, over a 1000 rooms, three-mile maze of passages, and 17 restaurants and bars, it’s often referred to as the Westminster Village. Prime Minister David Cameron tells me: “You do feel a real sense of history in this place. It’s half like a museum, half like a church, half like a school.”

Many MPs call the Commons Hogwarts, the school of wizardry in Harry Potter novels. MPs often find themselves walking down a passageway in the Commons that leads to nowhere. There are 650 MPs who come in all shapes, sizes and ages. And all of them admit to occasionally getting lost in the place. Sir Nicholas Soames, Churchill’s grandson, tells me: “I found somewhere the other day I never even knew existed, and I’ve been here 30 years. It was a bar.”

The Commons chamber is built for direct confrontation with government and opposition benches facing each other. The week’s highlight is the half-hour session of questions from MPs to the Prime Minister, with the Opposition leader guaranteed to ask six questions. The Labour leader Ed Miliband tells me: “The noise can be deafening: there are not many jobs where you go to work and have at least 300 people trying to shout you down.”

Prime Ministers are not at all keen on the weekly session. Tony Blair says: “It’s a nerve racking, discombobulating, nail-biting, bowel-moving, terror-inspiring, courage-draining experience.” In his Commons room, David Cameron nods animatedly when I put Blair’s quote to him. ‘There isn’t a Wednesday,’ said Cameron, ‘that you don’t feel total fear and trepidation about what is about to happen. I’m normally sitting here preparing for PMQs and about five minutes beforehand you think “oh no, have I got to do this again?”’ But the biggest most immediate question facing MPs and the Commons authorities is the state of the building itself. John Bercow, MP, the Commons Speaker, says: “We’ve got mice crawling around, we’ve got huge plates of glass falling down, we had effluent coming into one part of the building.” 

Roofs are leaking, paintwork peeling, plaster and stonework crumbling and Big Ben’s tower is starting to lean. The place costs a fortune to maintain, and it’s estimated the bill to repair and renew will cost some three billion pounds. 

There are some MPs, notably the more recent ones, who feel that this would be the time to take the momentous decision to move from the Palace of Westminster and into a purpose-built 21st century legislature. The Labour MP Sarah Champion says: “To me the Commons is just a high Victorian pastiche of power. I’d have it for weddings, conferences and a museum, and have something representative of who we are now, with really good architecture.” It is a suggestion that horrifies David Cameron: “When people say rebuild it, have a semi-circular Chamber, I would hate that. I like the House of Commons looking like it does and I think the sense of history and the connection with the past is very important.”

The author is the presenter and producer of Inside the Commons on BBC World News