Tuesday, June 16, 2026
Indecision costing the taxpayers millions
The paper says that a report by the National Audit Office (NAO) found that parliament currently spends about £1.5 million a week on maintenance of the palace, including refurbishment projects and that this is forecast to increase to about £2 million a week between 2026 and 2030:
The Palace, a Grade I listed building within a Unesco World Heritage site, requires extensive restoration to address serious risks, including failing mechanical and electrical systems, fire safety issues and high levels of asbestos.
The £1.5 million weekly cost of ongoing maintenance is the equivalent of paying the annual salaries of about 35-40 NHS nurses or the base salaries of about 60 soldiers in the Army. There has been deadlock over how to carry out the work as MPs are unable to agree on whether to decant the site while the restoration is carried out.
Four delivery options have been examined, ranging in cost from £11 billion-£56 billion, and taking between 19 and 84 years to complete. The team behind the project plans to reduce the number of options to two so parliament can make a decision by mid-2030.
Option one, the full decant — with both the House of Commons and Lords leaving as well as all staff — is the most cost effective, with a price tag of £11 billion to £16 billion. The work would take 19 to 24 years to complete.
The second option, “Enhanced maintenance and improvement plus”, would involve the palace being split into 14 zones to be worked on in stages. It would aim to ensure that no more than 30 per cent of the palace would be decanted at any one time. The House of Lords would vacate for eight to 13 years and the Commons would use the red Lords chamber for up to two years.
It is expected that option two would cost between £20 billion and £39 billion and take 38 to 61 years to complete.
Parliament is also being urged to approve an initial seven-year package of preparatory works capped at £3 billion to break the deadlock.
Going ahead with renovation may well be difficult, and certainly would not be popular, but the indecision is costing money too. Isn't it time that somebody made a decision?
