MPs and Peers are being urged to approve a £3bn fast-start package of early and enabling works aimed at finally getting ahead of the escalating repair bill at the Palace of Westminster and laying the foundations for the biggest restoration programme in the building’s history.
A new report from the Parliamentary Restoration and Renewal Client Board sets out a proposed seven-year “phase one” programme designed to arrest the growing costs of reactive maintenance and ageing mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. The approach would allow preparatory construction to begin while deferring the most politically sensitive decision on how the main restoration is delivered until 2030.
Under the plan, Parliament would move ahead immediately with a defined scope of early works, narrowing a long-running and politically fraught debate down to just two remaining delivery options for the main scheme.
The first option would see a full decant of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, allowing the Palace of Westminster to be stripped back and restored in a single, integrated programme. The Client Board describes this route as the safest, quickest and most cost-effective, but it would still take up to 24 years to complete and is currently estimated to cost close to £12bn.
The alternative is the enhanced maintenance and improvement option, which would keep Parliament operating in the building while works are carried out in up to 14 separate phases. This scenario would require MPs and Peers to move between temporary chambers and would see the House of Lords relocated to the QEII Centre for up to 13 years. The report warns that delivering the works around a live legislature would significantly increase complexity and risk, stretching the programme to as long as 61 years and pushing total costs towards £39bn.
The Client Board stresses that continued delay will only add to the bill. Each year of indecision is estimated to cost around £70m in wasted option development and ongoing patch repairs, with construction inflation adding hundreds of millions more to the eventual cost.
Subject to ministerial and parliamentary approval, procurement for multiple strategic partners covering programme management, technical consultancy and delivery would begin later this year, with appointments expected in 2027. Those partners would lead phase one works and develop detailed designs, cost plans and delivery programmes for both long-term options ahead of a final decision by both Houses before the end of the decade.
Phase one would include major enabling works such as a temporary Thames jetty and cofferdam to move materials by river, underground construction to release space for new services, early masonry and stone repairs, and the restoration of key courtyards. Temporary power, water and utility infrastructure would also be installed to allow life-expired systems to be safely switched off later, alongside significant remodelling of the QEII Centre to support future decant and resilience requirements.
