The plans for the restoration and refurbishment of Parliament have been blasted for the “unacceptable cloak of secrecy”. Speaking to Sky News, the chair of the Public Accounts Committee said that she “could weep for the five years” lost by the decision to abolish the organisation set up to deliver the renovation of Parliament.
Dame Meg Hillier MP has been left fuming by the decision to send the restoration programme back to the drawing board.
The decision comes as the estimated costs rose to between £7billion and £22billion.
However every week the work goes uncompleted costs £2.5million in terms of maintenance.
Former Leader of the House of Commons Andrea Leadsom has said she’s concerned that the Palace of Westminster could be Britain’s Notre Dame.
The Palace of Westminster burnt to the ground in 1834 with the flames being so high they could be seen for 20 miles around.
Politicians of the era had spent years arguing about the need to renovate the old parliament.
Almost 200 years on there are dire warnings that a similar disaster could envelop the current building without large scale restoration.
Despite decades of debate the organisation set up by Parliament to manage the restoration project has been scrapped.
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“Now we have no sponsor body, no plans to carry out the work, and there’s still argument about whether we should stay in the building while the work is done or not.
“This is not about us as MPs.
“This is about a building that belongs to the country – yes, it will cost a lot of money, but you can’t dodge it.”
A recent report from the committee concluded that any start date for work “has been pushed back by many years because of repeated attempts to revisit the basis of the programme”.
“We do not want it to take another catastrophic incident to finally galvanise action,” the report added.
