MORE than £2 million could be spent on external experts tasked with assessing the amount of work needed to bring the Palace of Westminster into the 21st century.
In a statement to MPs, Liberal Democrat MP John Thurso said Deloitte Real Estate would lead a consortium, which will also include AECOM and HOK, to review options for restoration and renewal of the palace.
Necessary work is likely to include removal of asbestos, updating of ancient electrics and lifts, modernisation of heating and ventilation, and repairs to leaky roofs. Subsidence is also causing the Elizabeth Tower, containing Big Ben, to tilt. Final decisions will not be made until after the 2015 election.
A maximum price for the Deloitte investigation contract has been set at £2,019,295. A fixed price will be determined two months into the work, Mr Thurso said, once the new contractors are familiar with existing extensive survey work. The final bill could be lower but cannot be higher.
Mr Thurso, speaking on behalf of the House of Commons Commission, said his committee and the House of Lords House Committee had jointly agreed the detailed study was the next step in establishing the necessary work on the palace, which dates back decades and in some parts of the building centuries.
Mr Thurso said: "The palace will require very significant renovation in the years to come. The commission and the house committee recognised in 2012 that doing nothing is not an option. They accept their responsibilities as custodians of a great iconic building and the need to ensure its future. Selection of a preferred way forward is expected to occur during the course of the next parliament, not this one."
Options discussed in the past have included moving parliamentarians off site for a period to allow a complete refit to take place. Alternatively, a much longer programme of rolling work could take place around the work of MPs and peers.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article