MP GEORGE Galloway has called for the Houses of Parliament to be turned into a museum and a new complex built out of the Olympics Park in East London after 2012. He decried “the antiquated customs and buildings” of Westminster

By Mike Brooke

MP GEORGE Galloway has called for the Houses of Parliament to be turned into a museum and a new complex built out of the Olympics Park in East London after 2012.

The Respect MP, whose current Bethnal Green & Bow constituency backs onto the construction site, decried “the antiquated customs and buildings” of the Palace of Westminster in which Parliament sought to carry out its work.

“Parliament needs new facilities to become a 21st century legislature holding the executive properly to account,” he said.

“The glory of the Olympics site is that there will be housing there which can be used by MPs who need temporary London accommodation.”

Galloway suggests most of the athletes’ village should be used afterwards for the 100,000 on council waiting lists in the five surrounding host’ boroughs that include Tower Hamlets where his own constituency lies.

But “500 smallish units” could be reserved for MPs from out of town, eliminating their need to claim a second home’ allowance.

His speech to yesterday’s Commons debate on revitalising Parliament called for “a complete break with the discredited Parliament of the expenses’ scandal.”

Only last week he himself repaid �3,000 for a phone bill he claimed for Parliamentary work in 2004.