Palace of Westminster Restoration and Renewal Programme: Spending

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD) [V]]

My Lords, there are a lot of questions within that. The fact is that this project will be one of the most complex heritage restoration projects ever undertaken, anywhere in the world. All the advice, including from the National Audit Office and the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, is that thorough preparation—the surveys and so on that I have outlined—is essential to the planning. All our costings are available on the website for the noble Baroness to find, but I am happy for officials to contact her and talk her through them.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, part of the sponsor body’s budget is spent on plans for the restored building. There are 12 storeys of accommodation in Victoria Tower, with spectacular views, occupied exclusively by archives, which are infrequently visited by noble Lords. Could the sponsor body save us the rent on 1 Millbank by converting that space into offices and moving the archives, which came here only in the 19th century, to somewhere less expensive and more accessible to those who need them?

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD) [V]]

The noble Lord makes an interesting point about the use of Parliament as a whole Estate, not just separate Houses and buildings. Accommodation surveys show that there is a significant amount of accommodation potentially available in Victoria Tower. It will be for the Houses to determine how to use that space after R&R has taken place. The future location of the archive is also a matter for the House administrations, which is currently being dealt with by the archives relocation programme.