House of Commons chamber set for radical revamp if Labour win ‘super-majority’ – as landslide could force Sir Keir Starmer’s MPs to sit on opposition benches

Radical plans are being drawn up to revamp part of the historic Commons Chamber to deal with a potential Work ‘supermajority’, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

This could mean abolishing some of the green benches traditionally used by the opposition and reserving them for newly elected Labor MPs so they can participate in debates.

The secret preparations follow Sir’s predictions Keir StarmerLabor could increase from just over 200 MPs to over 400 in the new parliament.

And the number Tory According to some estimates, the number of MPs could collapse from around 345 to fewer than 100.

A well-placed Commons source said: ‘It is possible that there are so many Labor MPs that we allow them to flood into what are normally the opposition benches.

Labor leader Keir Starmer on the campaign trail. The secret preparations follow predictions that Sir Keir Starmer’s Labor Party could rise from just over 200 MPs to more than 400 in the new parliament.

Diagram of what the House of Commons could look like with a Labor ‘supermajority’

“We could use a red rope or red tape to indicate where Labor MPs should sit.” The plan emerged just 24 hours after Boris Johnson raised the alarm about a so-called ‘Starmergeddon’ and urged people to vote Tory to avoid a Labor ‘electoral dictatorship’.

And the Tories warned of future employment tax increases by warning that Sir Keir would hit people with a ‘holiday tax’ on flying to help fill an expected £38.5 billion ‘black hole’ in his spending plans.

Transport Minister Mark Harper said that although Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had ruled out any so-called frequent flyer levy, the Labor manifesto is silent on the issue. Tory sources said there were so many questions about Sir Keir’s tax plans that Labor will ‘have to reprint their manifesto at this rate’.

Labor hit back by accusing the Tories of coming up with ‘fantasy’ tax plans to avoid answering questions about their own proposals, which would see a £4,800 increase in family mortgages.

The tax row came as:

• A new poll by Survation suggested Labor would win 456 seats, the Tories just 72 seats, the Lib Dems 56 and Reform a whopping seven.
• Nigel Farage prepared to launch Reform’s election manifesto, with expected policies tomorrow to include tax breaks for married couples;
• Labor candidate Tan Dhesi was called a ‘Zionist devil’ during his campaign in Slough, with government adviser Lord Walney calling the abuse ‘disgusting’;
• Health spokesman Wes Streeting unveiled Labour’s plans to tackle the NHS’s ‘cancer backlog’ in England, amid claims 700,000 patients will wait too long if the Tories are re-elected;
• The prime minister – who was attending a peace summit on Ukraine in Switzerland – warned Russia’s allies that they were “placing themselves on the side of the aggressor and on the wrong side of history.”

A packed House of Commons in January 2023. The Commons Chamber – opened in May 1852 – is designed to accommodate only 427 of the 650 MPs, with the rest forced to remain standing

Bomb damage to the Houses of Parliament during the Blitz in 1941. After it was destroyed by German bombs in the Second World War, there were calls for the House to be expanded by replacing its famous rectangular shape with a semi-circular design

By long-standing tradition, in the Commons Chamber, MPs from the ruling party sit to the right of the Speaker’s chair and the various opposition parties sit to the left. But Commons sources said yesterday that there could be so many Labor MPs after the election – possibly more than the 418 after Tony Blair’s first landslide in 1997 – that space could be carved out on the opposition benches to accommodate them.

Physically cordoning off benches would be controversial as it appears to go against the Commons convention that MPs can technically sit where they want. However, one source pointed out that it would not be the first time a ruling party had moved to the opposition benches, saying this happened in 1931 and 1935 after large majorities for the ruling parties.

And it is designed so that the Commons Chamber – opened in May 1852 – can only seat 427 of the 650 MPs, with the rest forced to stand.

After it was destroyed by German bombs in World War II, calls were made to expand the Chamber by replacing its famous rectangular shape with a semi-circular design. However, it was roughly rebuilt to its original size and shape after Sir Winston Churchill’s appeal on major occasions to maintain ‘a sense of crowd and urgency’.

The great wartime Prime Minister argued: ‘If the House is large enough for all its members, nine-tenths of its debates will be conducted in the depressing atmosphere of an almost empty or half-empty House.’

The new Chamber was put into use for the first time on October 26, 1950.

Last night, House of Commons officials insisted it was up to MPs – not them – to decide who sat where on the green benches.