Han Kuo-yu compares Taiwan's parliament to a beggar's home, reviving relocation debate.

Legislative Yuan President Han Kuo-yu today officially received a cross-party delegation of British parliamentarians led by British Member of Parliament and House of Commons British-Taiwan All-Party Parliamentary Group Co-Chair Sarah Champion in Taipei with the highest protocol. During the cordial meeting, both sides exchanged in-depth views on important issues such as democratic values, economic and trade cooperation, and parliamentary diplomacy between Taiwan and the United Kingdom. However, during this solemn diplomatic meeting, Han used his customary vivid and sharply contrasted rhetoric when discussing the current state of Taiwan’s highest legislative body, bluntly remarking that the architectural exterior and historical heritage of the British Parliament look like they were "built for a prince," whereas Taiwan's Legislative Yuan building body and internal facilities pale significantly in comparison, resembling a place "built for beggars." This candid and heavily self-deprecating remark not only quickly brought a knowing smile to the faces of the visiting British MPs in attendance, but once again pushed the long-debated yet perpetually stagnant issue of the relocation and reconstruction of Taiwan's parliament to the forefront of public opinion and discussion.

Han confessed to the distinguished British guests that the reconstruction project for Taiwan's parliamentary building has been a subject of domestic debate for nearly thirty years. Having passed through numerous legislative terms and various legislative speakers, it has consistently seen thunder without rain—frequently discussed but never acted upon. He expressed a deep aspiration that Taiwan will, in the future, possess a brand-new, modernized parliamentary building that befits the dignity of a hall of democracy. This would not only thoroughly improve the current outdated, cramped, and pipe-worn office and meeting environment, but would also allow the hardware facilities to match the prosperity and high degree of development Taiwan has demonstrated in economic, technological, and social fields in recent years. In fact, the current Legislative Yuan compound on Chung Shan South Road in Taipei was formerly the Taipei Third Prefectural High School during the Japanese colonial period (later the predecessor of Taipei Municipal Cheng Gong High School, which was subsequently used by the Taiwan Provincial Government's Department of Agriculture and Forestry after the Nationalist Government came to Taiwan). The building itself has a long history and holds a certain degree of historical texture and cultural asset value, but as the highest representative organ of a modern democratic country, its spatial scale, allocation of members' offices, size of the chamber, and requirements for public access and security protection have long fallen far short of adequacy.

Reviewing the historical trajectory of Taiwan's democratization and the full re-election of the parliament, the problems of insufficient space and aging buildings in the Legislative Yuan are chronic issues that have accompanied Taiwan's democratic transition every step of the way. As early as the 1990s, following the full re-election of the parliament and the firm establishment of popular representation, calls from all political parties for the construction of a new parliamentary building arose one after another. Over the past thirty years, the Legislative Yuan has repeatedly established cross-party planning groups for the relocation or expansion of the parliament, conducting countless evaluations and discussions regarding the selection of a new site. From early options such as the Huashan Creative Park in Taipei, the area surrounding the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, the former site of the Air Force General Headquarters ( Air Force Command Headquarters), to proposals moving out of Taipei to seek balanced regional development in central and southern Taiwan, various options have been brought to the table for discussion. However, each discussion has ultimately fizzled out due to massive budget scales, complex land ownership and urban planning changes involved in site selection, and political symbolism tussles among ruling and opposition parties, causing the grand relocation plan to remain mere empty talk on paper.

On this occasion, by utilizing the international diplomatic setting of receiving the British parliamentary delegation to proactively raise the plight of Taiwan's parliamentary building and contrast it with the UK's majestic, centuries-old Palace of Westminster, Han reflected the heavy administrative and security burdens Taiwan's parliament has shouldered for a long time. The existing legislative compound has limited land space, and its surrounding traffic flow appears inadequate in the center of Taipei, where rallies and protests are frequent. Members' offices are dispersed across different buildings, which not only affects the administrative efficiency of daily policymaking and cross-party negotiations, but also frequently subjects the building's own defense and emergency response capabilities to severe tests whenever major bill reviews or social movement conflicts arise. As the current head of the parliament, bearing the heavy responsibility of maintaining legislative operations and parliamentary dignity, Han's public expression of longing for a new parliament is not only a frank presentation of the deficiencies in Taiwan's democratic hardware to international friends, but also a wakeup call to the domestic political arena, intended to break years of partisan bias and administrative inertia and re-forge a social consensus on parliamentary modernization.

From a diplomatic perspective, Champion's leadership of the cross-party British parliamentary delegation visiting this time carries extremely high political symbolic significance, demonstrating the British Parliament's high level of support and cross-party consensus for Taiwan's democracy. In such a setting, Han's use of humorous and down-to-earth language to describe the current state of the parliament not only successfully narrowed the distance between himself and the British MPs, but also allowed the international community to see more concretely the practical bottlenecks facing the deep development of Taiwan's democracy. Democracy is not merely voting and the operation of legislative procedures; it also requires a dignified hardware vessel capable of matching the level of national development. Whether Han's public statement today can truly transform into substantial momentum for the birth of a new Taiwanese parliament, rather than remaining another thirty years of empty talk, will test the political wisdom and execution determination of Taiwan's ruling and opposition parties.