Lord Colgrain

The Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body and Restoration and Renewal (R&R) Delivery Authority were established in April and May 2020 respectively. The Sponsor Body was abolished on 1 January 2023 and its functions transferred to the R&R Client Team in Parliament. Prior to this, work related to the restoration and renewal of the Palace was funded and managed by the House Administrations. Both the R&R Client Team and Delivery Authority routinely publish information on costs, for instance in quarterly reports, annual reports, and memoranda provided to the Parliamentary Works Estimates Commission, as did the Sponsor Body prior to its abolition.

Staff costs for the Sponsor Body for its full two years of operation (2020-21 and 2021-22) are set out in its Annual Reports and Accounts (available at https://www.restorationandrenewal.uk/sponsor-body-archive), and amount to approximately £8.4 million. In 2022-23 the Sponsor Body was abolished and its costs merged into the R&R Client Team, which is a joint department of both Houses.

It is not possible to disaggregate recruitment fees for the Sponsor Body as this falls within other elements of expenditure. Approximately £540,000, excluding employer’s pensions and national insurance contributions, was paid in settlement payments to senior staff of the Sponsor Body (three Executive Directors and the Accounting Officer) which they were entitled to under their contracts, rather than seeking to transfer to the new Client Team. These settlement payments were approved by the Sponsor Body Nominations and Renumerations Committee and audited by the National Audit Office.

Staff costs for the R&R Delivery Authority from 2020-21 to 2023-24 are set out in its Annual Report and Financial Statements (available at https://www.restorationandrenewal.uk/about-us/corporate-publications), and amount to approximately £59.1 million. Recruitment fees in the Delivery Authority over this period amount to approximately £710,000.

Under the R&R Programme, tens of thousands of hours of complex building surveys and investigations to develop ever more detailed records of the Palace of Westminster have been carried out. These records are being used to inform design and planning, and future decisions on the essential restoration work required. Since its establishment in 2020 up to the end of 2023-24, the R&R Delivery Authority has spent approximately £28 million on surveys to the Palace.

The estimated costs incurred by the R&R Delivery Authority in respect of developing and assessing the QEII Conference Centre as the preferred decant location of the House of Lords from 2020-21 to 2023-24 is £12m. These figures do not include Sponsor Body, R&R Client Team, or House of Lords staff costs and do cover some other work related to temporary accommodation, where it is not possible to disaggregate work carried out by contractors to cover multiple activities. The work to assess and prepare for House of Commons decant location options, including the expenditure for that work, is the responsibility of the governance bodies in the House of Commons.

There are no plans to issue legislation to impose legal duties on landowners to restrict the growth of ragwort. The Government’s ‘Code of Practice on How to Prevent the Spread of Ragwort’ (see attached) sets out guidance for landowners on when and how common ragwort should be removed, taking into account both animal welfare and environmental considerations.

The Code does not seek to eradicate common ragwort, but only seeks to control its spread where it poses a high risk of spreading to agricultural land, for example land used for grazing.