‘Unacceptable cloak of secrecy’ around Houses of Parliament restoration, says MP
The chair of the Public Accounts Committee has told Sky News she “could weep for the five years” lost by the decision to abolish the organisation set up to managed the long-term renovation of parliament.
Dame Meg Hillier MP says there is an “unacceptable cloak of secrecy” around the restoration programme which she says was effectively sent back to the drawing board after the estimated bill rose to between £7 and £22 billion.
But every week the work isn’t done costs £2.5m maintenance – and former leader of the house Dame Andrea Leadsom says she’s worried the Palace of Westminster could be Britain’s Notre Dame.
After decades of debate, MPs are still intensely divided about the cost of the work, whether they have to move out of parliament, and where their temporary home might be if so.
When the Palace of Westminster burnt to the ground in 1834 the flames were so high they could be seen from 20 miles away.
Palace of Westminster on Fire 1834. Pic: UK Parliament
Politicians of the day had spent many years beforehand arguing about the need to renovate the old parliament.
Now, nearly 200 years later, many fear that without large-scale restoration work a similar disaster could befall its successor.
But after decades of debate, the organisation set up by parliament in 2018 to manage the huge renovation project has been scrapped.
“I could weep for the five years we’ve lost,” says Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the Public Accounts Committee. “There was a real issue here about shooting the messenger.
“It feels very much like we are back to square one. 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 any likely start date “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,” it reads.
What work is actually taking place?
Ongoing repair work to strengthen the roof and Victorian masonry is constantly under way and work has recently been carried out to restore the ceiling of St Stephen’s Hall, for example (on the site of the original Commons Chamber, which burnt down), as well as the renovation of the Elizabeth Tower and Big Ben.
But the real challenge is in the vast, labyrinthine basement with gas and dripping water pipes jumbled together alongside a morass of electric wiring, telephone cables, and even a working steam engine which is part of the Victorian sewage system.
Dr Alexandra Meakin, a politics lecturer at the University of Leeds, is an expert on the restoration programme. She says the mess in the basement is a disaster waiting to happen.
“With gas and steam pipes running alongside each other, even a tiny leak, there is a huge fire risk – it’s only allowed to stay open at all if there are fire wardens patrolling 24 hours a day.
“The risk is real, it’s not just cosmetic work. And it’s not just about the MPs and peers, but about the staff who work there – the thousands of people in catering and cleaning who shouldn’t have to work in a death trap, not to mention all the millions of visitors, including school children.”
The palace is also riddled with asbestos – last year it emerged a leak during building work meant up to 117 contractors and staff had potentially been exposed.
“If you try to do major work in the palace, it’s going to be difficult to work around it,” says Dr Meakin. “Asbestos runs the whole length of the building.”
Concerns over costs, timescales and governance
In January 2018, parliament voted to move forward with plans to vacate the building – known as a ‘decant’ – and carry out a full renovation, setting up an independent sponsor body (a team of some 55 staff and experts as well as parliamentarians) to lead and manage the project along the lines of the London Olympics.
Last January they published provisional cost and schedule estimates which predicted that the essential works alone would cost between £7bn and £13bn – and take 19 to 28 years.
If MPs and peers insisted on staying put, they warned the project could end up lasting as long as 76 years, and cost as much as £22bn.
For some, this was just too much to accept.
In March, the Commissions of the House of Commons and Lords (made up of the speakers, clerks and other senior parliamentarians) said they had concerns over the project’s costs, timescales and governance.
They recommended scrapping the sponsor body altogether and bringing the vast project in house.
MPs and Lords voted that through in the summer, and the decision passed into law just before Christmas.
Conservative MP Sir Edward Leigh is sceptical of what he describes as the “ridiculous” estimates drawn up by the sponsor body.
“There are ways of doing it that mean you don’t have to move everybody out at vast expense,” he claims.
“We can’t have a very expensive gold-plated plan, especially when the economy is in tatters – the public would look askance at parliament spending £20bn on itself.”
‘We just need to get on with it’
Last month the Shadow Leader of the House, Thangam Debbonaire MP, accused some MPs of “undermining” the work of the sponsor body and “wrangling with the experts”.
Sir Edward denies this is the case, and says it’s right for MPs and Lords to take back control of the project.
“We just need to get on with it and make it safe,” he says.
Dame Meg Hillier by contrast describes the commission’s intervention as “grubby”.
“If they did this to any other piece of legislation, there would be uproar,” she says. “I’m incredibly concerned.
“We’ve seen huge problems in the past – costs nearly tripled during the renovation of the Elizabeth Tower, and the memory of what happened with Portcullis House [which ended up substantially over budget and schedule when built to house MPs’ offices in the 1990s] still haunts people here.”
Where would staff move to?
Another complication is the lack of consensus on where the occupants of the Palace of Westminster would move to, even if agreement is reached on the need for them to do so.
While long-established plans had been developed to decant the Lords to the nearby Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, then-prime minister Boris Johnson later asked the programme to explore the option of sending them to York instead.
In May 2022 Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove also intervened, saying he would rather see them moving to Stoke.
As for MPs, under a previous phase of the project, £70m was spent preparing plans to rebuild Richmond House, the old Department of Health building in Westminster.
But that idea has now been dropped as being too expensive; and while some hope that the remote working technology used during COVID-19 could help provide a solution, reaching consensus on this aspect of the programme alone is clearly fraught with disagreement.
‘One of the most famous buildings in the world’
As former leader of the house, Dame Andrea Leadsom MP shepherded the 2018 legislation through parliament.
She says the decision to undo much of it “seems a means to kick the situation into the long grass – it’s disastrous.
“I get that it’s a huge bill, and I’m sympathetic to the need to get value for taxpayers’ money – but this is one of the most famous buildings in the world.
“There have been something like 50 fire incidents in the recent decade, any one of them could have resulted in a kind of Notre Dame style absolute burning down of the palace.
“There’s a huge amount of money being spent already just to patch and mend… we just need to crack on and do it rather than circling back round all the time and changing the decisions about how we’re going to do it.”
When will the next vote take place?
MPs are now expected to vote on a new strategy by the end of next year.
In a statement, parliament said: “In July 2022 members of both Houses agreed a more integrated approach to future restoration, prioritising safety critical work. We are getting on with work across the parliamentary estate to ensure the safety of those who work and visit here, and to support the continued business of parliament.
“This includes planning for the large and complex restoration of the Palace of Westminster to preserve it for future generations.
“More than 2,000 areas of the palace have been investigated this year to give a better understanding of the building’s condition. These surveys will inform a wide set of options for delivery of the restoration work, including the level of ambition during these challenging economic times.”
UK
Rachel Reeves says budget ‘non-negotiable’ on China trip – as former PM says she’s been ‘rumbled’ by market turmoil
The chancellor has said the budget is “non-negotiable” on a visit to China in the face of volatile markets back in the UK.
Rachel Reeves flew out on Friday after ignoring calls from opposition parties to cancel the long-planned trip because of economic turmoil at home.
The past week has seen a drop in the pound and an increase in government borrowing costs, which has fuelled speculation of more spending cuts or tax rises.
The Tories have accused the chancellor of having “fled to China” rather than explain how she will fix the UK’s flatlining economy, while the Liberal Democrats say she should stay in Britain and announce a “plan B” to address market volatility.
Former prime minister Boris Johnson said Ms Reeves had “been rumbled” and said she should “make her way to HR and collect her P45 – or stay in China”.
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Chancellor’s ‘pragmatic’ approach to China
The chancellor visits a Brompton bike shop in Beijing. Pic: AP
However, during a visit to Beijing’s flagship store of UK bike maker Brompton, Ms Reeves said she would not alter her economic plans, with the October budget designed to return the UK to economic stability.
“Growth is the number one mission of this government,” she said.
“The fiscal rules laid out in the budget are non-negotiable. Economic stability is the bedrock for economic growth and prosperity.”
The treasury added that making Britain better off will be at the “forefront of the chancellor’s mind” during her visit.
She said that “action” will be taken to meet the fiscal rules. That action is reported to include deeper spending cuts than the 5% efficiency savings already expected to be announced later this year, while cuts to the welfare bill are also said to be under consideration.
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The chancellor is being accompanied by Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey and other senior executives.
She met her counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng, in Beijing on Saturday to discuss financial services, trade and investment, before heading to Shanghai for talks with representatives across British and Chinese businesses.
She will also “raise difficult issues”, including Chinese firms supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and concerns over constraints on rights and freedoms in Hong Kong, the Treasury said.
But it did not mention whether Ms Reeves would raise the treatment of the Uyghur community, which Downing Street said Foreign Secretary David Lammy would do during his visit last year.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing. Pic: AP
On Friday, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy defended the trip, telling Sky News that the climbing cost of government borrowing was a “global trend” that had affected many countries, “most notably the United States”.
“We are still on track to be the fastest growing economy, according to the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] in Europe,” she told Anna Jones on Sky News Breakfast.
“China is the second-largest economy, and what China does has the biggest impact on people from Stockton to Sunderland, right across the UK, and it’s absolutely essential that we have a relationship with them.”
Ed Conway analysis: The chancellor’s gamble with China
Grim economic news raises stakes for embattled chancellor’s controversial China trip
Rachel Reeves’s trip to China – the first by a British chancellor since 2019 – was always going to be controversial.
In recent years Conservative governments have been keeping Beijing at arm’s length – amid concern about espionage, the situation in Hong Kong, and the treatment of the Uyghurs.
David Cameron’s so-called “Golden Era” of engagement in the pursuit of economic investment, notoriously capped by a visit to an Oxfordshire pub for a pint with President Xi Jinping – has been widely written off as a naive mistake.
There are many – not least the incoming US President Donald Trump – who believe we should maintain our distance.
But in another era of economic turmoil, the pursuit of growth is the government’s number one priority.
This week’s difficult market news – with the cost of government borrowing surging, and the value of the pound falling – has thoroughly raised the stakes.
It is the first UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue (EFD) since 2019, building on the Labour government’s plan for a “pragmatic” policy with the world’s second-largest economy.
Sir Keir Starmer was the first British prime minister to meet with China’s President Xi Jinping in six years at the G20 summit in Brazil last autumn.
Relations between the UK and China have become strained over the last decade as the Conservative government spoke out against human rights abuses and concerns grew over national security risks.
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How much do we trade with China?
Navigating this has proved tricky given China is the UK’s fourth largest single trading partner, with a trade relationship worth almost £113bn and exports to China supporting over 455,000 jobs in the UK in 2020, according to the government.
During the Tories’ 14 years in office, the approach varied dramatically from the “golden era” under David Cameron to hawkish aggression under Liz Truss, while Rishi Sunak vowed to be “robust” but resisted pressure from his own party to brand China a threat.
The Treasury said a stable relationship with China would support economic growth and that “making working people across Britain secure and better off is at the forefront of the chancellor’s mind”.
Ahead of her visit, Ms Reeves said: “By finding common ground on trade and investment, while being candid about our differences and upholding national security as the first duty of this government, we can build a long-term economic relationship with China that works in the national interest.”
UK
Grim economic news raises stakes for embattled chancellor Rachel Reeves’s controversial China trip
Rachel Reeves’s trip to China – the first by a British chancellor since 2019 – was always going to be controversial.
In recent years Conservative governments have been keeping Beijing at arm’s length – amid concern about espionage, the situation in Hong Kong, and the treatment of the Uyghurs.
David Cameron‘s so-called “Golden Era” of engagement in the pursuit of economic investment, notoriously capped by a visit to an Oxfordshire pub for a pint with President Xi Jinping – has been widely written off as a naive mistake.
There are many – not least the incoming US President Donald Trump – who believe we should maintain our distance.
But in another era of economic turmoil, the pursuit of growth is the government’s number one priority.
Rachel Reeves visits a Beijing bike shop. Pic: AP
This week’s difficult market news – with the cost of government borrowing surging, and the value of the pound falling – has thoroughly raised the stakes.
Both the Tories and the Lib Dems argued the visit should be cancelled.
Prominent China hawk and former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith MP summed up both arguments against it.
“The trip is pointless,” he wrote on X. “As the disastrous ‘Golden Era’ showed, the murderous, brutal, law-breaking, communist regime in China will not deliver the growth the Labour government craves.
“Instead, she should stay home and try to sort out the awful mess her budget has created.”
President Xi Jinping and David Cameron in 2015. Pic: PA
Yet cancelling the trip would have been a diplomatic disaster and far from adding to economic stability would surely have spread a sense of crisis (with inevitable comparisons to Denis Healey’s abandoned visit to Hong Kong in 1976, months before he was forced to apply from an emergency loan from the IMF to save the pound from collapse).
Instead, the government argues the current market situation is a result of “global trends”, and Reeves insists she will be sticking to the decisions taken in the budget.
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“Growth is the number one mission of this government. The fiscal rules laid out in the budget are non-negotiable. Economic stability is the bedrock for economic growth and prosperity.”
Improving the UK/China relationship should “boost our economic growth for the benefit of working people in both of our countries” she said during her meeting with vice premier He Lifeng.
In a speech to media afterwards, Reeves was delighted to announce a big, concrete number to justify the value of the trip, claiming the agreements reached would be worth £600m to the UK economy over five years.
Pragmatism is the new order of the day. Labour argues re-establishing “pragmatic engagement” with China is in the national interest, and it’s a word Reeves used four times in five minutes during her speech.
Ed Conway analysis: The chancellor’s gamble with China
The government insists this new closer relationship will make it easier for them to raise tricky issues and we did hear the chancellor flagging concerns about Hong Kong and the role of China in connection with Russia’s war in Ukraine – though not the Uyghurs, or the imprisoned British citizen and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai.
The challenge going forward will be to show that cosying up to China is worth it.
There’s a lot riding on it for the chancellor – with questions being openly asked about her economic strategy given the growing likelihood that to meet her fiscal rules on balancing tax and spending she will be forced to make deep cuts to government departments this spring.
We are promised a big speech from the chancellor on the government’s plans for growth in the coming weeks.
In many ways, the trip to China may have been a welcome break from the difficult decisions which await her return.
Former Manchester United footballer David May has shared his fears about developing dementia – and the impact that would have on his family.
It comes after the ex-footballer revealed David Windass, the former Hull City, Bradford City and Middlesbrough striker, has been diagnosed with stage two dementia.
During the early stages of dementia, people show a very mild cognitive decline, including occasional memory loss and struggles finding words, according to Dementia UK.
May shared 55-year-old Windass’s diagnosis – with his permission – during a BBC Breakfast interview.
“I actually said, ‘Would you mind if I mentioned it?’ And he went, ‘No. 100% – you mention it. Get it out there’. Not to put Deano under the spotlight, but the issue,” he told Sky News’ sports correspondent Rob Harris.
“I’d hate my children to go through that, knowing their dad doesn’t know them, doesn’t recognise them, can’t speak to them. It’s tragic.”
May, a defender with United’s 1999 treble-winning team, also revealed he is worried about his long-term health.
“Ask me would I do it again? Football? 100% – because I love football. It’s my life,” the 54-year-old said.
“Would I have done as many headers through training, and continuously heading in training? Maybe not.
“But I have just got to wait and see. It’s a waiting game. Are you going to be the one that’s going to miss it?
“One in three-and-a-half people will get dementia who have become professional footballers.”
May (top centre) won the treble with Manchester United in 1998/99. Pic: firo Sportphoto/ J’rgen Fromme/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
Asked if he thought heading would eventually be banned, he said: “No, I don’t think you need to eradicate heading. It’s part of the game, and you don’t want to take that out of the game.
“It has been an incredible, and still is a wonderful, wonderful game.
“But maybe the amount of headers you do in training can change.
“I know that before, probably 15, 20 times, you’d head a ball in training. And then on a Friday you’d go through it to get your timings right, maybe another five or six before the game starts, and then all the heading in games.
“It’s a lot. It’s a hell of a lot of headers in a footballer’s career.”
May has joined campaigners pushing for more help for footballers affected by neurodegenerative diseases.
The diagnosis at such a young age for Windass has brought home the reality that this remains a major problem in football.
“It’s not going to go away. Day in, day out, players are heading the balls in games, and you know, are they aware of it? Probably not,” said May.
“We need to keep fighting for the right answers and the right funds.”
David May speaking to Sky News’ sports correspondent Rob Harris
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and the Mayor of the Liverpool City Region Steve Rotheram have given their backing to the cause.
The Football Families for Justice (FFJ) campaign has the support of former England captain David Beckham, and is now seeking to secure an amendment to the Football Governance Bill which would give the independent regulator the power to make it a statutory duty on the football authorities to develop a comprehensive dementia strategy, including a care fund agreed with affected players and their families.
“When you think of how much money comes into the Premier League now, it’s billions,” said May.
“It’s a pittance what they could donate to these lads who drastically need help and care.”
Read more from Sky News:
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In addition to funding research, the Football Association is also working to remove deliberate headings from youth football up to under-11s by 2026. It has also introduced rules on high-force headers in training at all levels of adult football to reduce the risks to individuals.
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