Remember 1976!
Parliament and heatwaves
This week’s heatwave has led some to make comparisons with the summer of 1976, when the hottest temperature recorded was 35°C. That got me wondering whether the 1976 heatwave prompted any parliamentary discussion.
A few weeks into the heatwave, which lasted for three months between June and August, there were two Oral Questions put to the Leader of the House of Commons and Chairman of the Services Committee, Michael Foot, the Labour MP for Ebbw Vale. The first asked ‘what steps were taken to ameliorate the working conditions of hon. Members and staff of the House of Commons during the recent heatwave’, while the second asked about summer attire for staff of the House.
As Foot outlined, measures taken by Parliament to improve the working conditions of parliamentary staff included:
200 extra fans (borrowed from the RAF)[1]
Air conditioning in the Members’ and Strangers’ Cafeterias
Police, custodians and staff of the Refreshment Department were all allowed to work in shirt sleeves.
There was also discussion of the ‘penguin suits’ that Badge Messengers [doorkeepers] had to wear and the wigs worn by Mr Speaker and his staff. Some, like Enoch Powell, Ulster Unionist MP for South Down, could not understand ‘why there is all this fuss about summer attire?’ adding, ‘is it not the case that if people want to be cool, they should keep their normal clothing on rather than take it off?’
For others, the problem was ‘not primarily one of dress, because it does not arise mainly in the Chamber or in the Members’ Lobby’. Alan Beith, Liberal MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed, went on to suggest:
‘Even if hon. Members and staff had conducted proceedings in Committee and their offices and had worked in the nude, they would still have found it too hot in the recent weather? Does he not agree that the problem would be much reduced if we conducted most of our business in the cooler part of the year and took our holidays in the hotter part?’
Foot opted to propose that light-weight jackets be provided to doorkeepers in the future.
[1] A follow up question revealed that there had been some concern that the fans had come from Japan, but Foot had checked, and only 14 of the 200 fans were manufactured in Japan.