‘Waste of money’ for V.I.P.S

Press, 18 October 1976, Page 13

‘Waste of money’ for V.I.P.S

London Correspondent The British Government has dreamed up “a cunning new way” to waste public money, according to a London newspaper — “putting up conference centres and pulling them down again.” When New Zealand’s Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon,) visits London next June for the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference, he and his staff will get a closeup view of one of the most expensive prefabs ever built. One newspaper has suggested that the two-storey building, now being erected on the lawn in front of Lancaster House, is a variation on the “dig-a-hole-and-fill-it-up-again” theme. The Prime Ministers’ Conference proper will be held at Lancaster House, not far from Buckingham Palace. So will a N.A.T.O. Ministers’ meeting and a gathering of Common Market heads — and the temporary. conference centre will accommodate the V.I.P.s and their staffs, in 35 carpeted suites, complete with Governmentissue desks, chairs, tables, telephones and toilets. It will then be pulled down and “relocated elsewhere” according to a Government spokesman. The cost — $346,500.

The Government has apparently decided that there is no conference hall with the necessary additional facilities and ease of access to diplomatic missions anywhere in London. Security at Lancaster House would also be less of a problem than in most other parts of the city. “We have three major conferences next year,” said a spokesman for the' the Department of the Enrolment. “It is not often Britain is host to so many distinguished heads of Government. It will be comfortably furnished, but there will be nothing extravagant about it.” The offices will be identical because, as a man at the department of the environment said in an unguarded moment: “the tendency is for Heads of State not to be happy with accommodation inferior to that provided for other Heads of State.”