So where should we stick our MPs? Or rather, those MPs who want their accommodation paid for by the state?
Yes, we could build a block of flats for them. To be cost effective, it would have to be somewhere like Brixton. Yet while it may be appealing to have to issue each one of them a Harriet Harman Suit on a daily basis as an introduction to urban living, the cost benefits already start to disappear in new build, security and transit.
So how about this place? The Old War Office building could continue to be part used for official state purposes. Another big plus is that the government could still make use of the Whitehall tunnels. The place has plenty of spacious rooms, waterworks and the like. Security is a given. Having once worked there, the place has potential (though I can’t speak as a plumber).
The downside of course is that the authorities will no doubt bring in a PFI to modify and then run the place. Still, perhaps that’s better than buying up prime real estate on the edge of a market crash. Given an inevitable pessimism about our confidence in government, it becomes shades of a debate really as to what kind of mismanagement we would prefer - another scandal in the mould of the Millennium Dome, or of the Bank of England gold sell off bonanza.
Perhaps, given the track record of Whitehall managerial incompetence, it may well prove cheaper to just change the system. MPs can get their subsidies, but capped at the value of the property, and the state owns the percentile share of the value of the property for which it paid (with options on either side of a buy out).
An MP’s Council Flat for the twenty first century. It beats bringing in Bob the Builder.