Committee warns Westminster faces Notre Dame-style fire risk unless funding is settled
The Commons Public Accounts Committee has warned that the Palace of Westminster faces the risk of a Notre Dame-style fire or a similar catastrophic event if MPs do not tackle how its restoration is funded. The committee is a cross-party group of MPs that examines how public money is spent, and it is chaired by Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, a Conservative MP, according to The Guardian.
The Palace is a Grade I-listed building, a designation given to structures of exceptional historic interest, and it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The fire risk comes mainly from outdated electrics, and the building requires 24-hour fire patrols. A major programme of fire safety work was completed in 2021, at a cost of about £130 million. The concern is not new: in 2019, MPs warned that the building was at critical risk of a fire as devastating as the blaze at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
The cost of keeping the building running is also rising. The current maintenance bill is about £1.5 million a week, and the committee's figures show it will soon reach £2 million a week. Restoration was estimated at as much as £40 billion and could take up to six decades. The committee estimates that every year of delay adds £420 million to the restoration programme.
Two main options are set out in the committee's material. A full "decant" restoration, meaning both chambers move out while the work is carried out, would cost about £15.6 billion and last up to 24 years. Under that plan the Commons would sit in Richmond House and the Lords in the QEII conference centre. A staged approach would cost about £39.2 billion and take between 38 and 61 years, with the Commons moving into the Lords chamber for up to two years. Refurbishing the QEII centre as temporary accommodation for the Lords is estimated to cost £417 million.
The committee has made several recommendations. It has asked the clerks of the Commons and the Lords, the senior officials who run each chamber, to set out within six months a plan to engage parliamentarians on the restoration. It has also called for robust cost estimates and a timetable that would support a decision on the main restoration project in 2030.
