Arm’s length delivery authority to oversee £4bn Parliament restoration

An Olympic-style delivery body is to oversee the £4bn restoration of the Palace of Westminster, after a joint committee of MPs and peers published its long-awaited recommendations for revamping Parliament’s ailing Grade I-listed buildings.

The Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster has recommended that MPs and peers move out of the Palace of Westminster for six years to allow essential maintenance works to take place. MPs will decamp to the nearby headquarters of the Department of Health at Richmond House and peers will move to the QE2 conference centre.

The committee’s report has recommended the setting up of an “arm’s length Delivery Authority” to examine and test its conclusions and then to work up detailed designs and a robust business case, which both Houses will vote on. It is believed that the delivery authority will be supported by the winners of two client advisory roles Parliament has been procuring.

Last December, nine firms and joint ventures were shortlisted - Allies and Morrison, BDP, Foster + Partners and HOK have been shortlisted for the architectural lot, while Aecom and Mace, Capita and Gleeds, CH2M, Arcadis and Turner & Townsend have been shortlisted for programme, project and cost management services.

It is widely believed that prime minister Theresa May will endorse the committee’s recommendations and MPs and peers will decamp from 2022 – their first move away from Parliament since 1941.

The required work has become more urgent. In recent years, part of the ceiling of the Lords chamber collapsed onto the benches below, while a burst pipe once flooded the Committee Room corridor. It is believed that the renovations will be completed as much as possible using materials sourced from within the UK. Among the refurbishments will be works to the heating, electrical and water systems.

Baroness Stowell, co-chairman of the Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster, said: “We must not spend a penny more than is absolutely necessary, but this is now an increasingly urgent problem. We can’t put off the decision to act any longer if we are to protect one of the most important and iconic parts of our national heritage.”