The Palace of Westminster restoration program underspent its budget in the first quarter of the financial year, despite the urgent need to make the historic parliamentary buildings safe.
A report of the Restoration and Renovation Board of the Houses of Parliament in its activities from April to June shows that the body did not spend £2.3m of its £18.2m budget.
This is due to a number of reasons, including “slippage due to access limitations and delays in consent and recruitment”.
Other reasons cited include “lower than budgeted contract costs” and “decommissioning/postponing some activity after a prioritization exercise”.
Last year, plans for Parliament’s restoration and renovation programme, agreed in 2019, were scrapped over concerns about rising costs. In total, £270m was spent developing the previous plans and designing their business case before they were cancelled.
In May, warned the public accounts committee of deputies of a real and growing risk that the Houses of Parliament will be destroyed before restoration work begins, after years of procrastination in organizing a program to rehabilitate the dilapidated buildings.
The committee said the parliament spends up to £2 million a week to carry out more than 4,000 pieces of maintenance every month.
Nigel Evans, chairman of the Restoration and Renewal board, says in the latest report that the project team has been short-listing a number of options since March and hopes to present two options to parliament by the end of the year.
The chair of the public accounts committee, Dame Meg Hillier, said Construction news“Our committee continues to warn that every day of time lost in the restoration and renovation of the Palace of Westminster carries a real and increasing risk of catastrophe.”
He added: “We will explore the multiple reasons put forward for the budget breach in due course, noting that a contributing factor is access constraints and delays in consent and procurement.
“The building is a public health disaster waiting to happen on a number of fronts, whether it’s fire, asbestos or falling masonry, but the additional delays are also very costly to the taxpayer. Neither public safety, value for money, nor the future of this [Unesco] World Heritage Sites are served by the lack of action.”
A spokesman for the Houses of Parliament Restoration and Renewal Delivery Authority said MPs and Lords have agreed that safety-critical work will be prioritized under the new approach to restoration.
“The new governance of the program has made very good progress in selecting from the wide range of options developed by the Delivery Authority, so later this year both Houses will be asked to agree to more detailed work on two options to restore and refurbish the Palace of Westminster,” they added.
“Parliament continues to work to ensure the safety of those who work at the Palace of Westminster and to support the continued business of the Houses.”
