Parliament Faces 'Notre Dame-Style' Fire Risk as Restoration Costs Climb and MPs Delay Decisions

A cross-party committee of MPs has warned that the Palace of Westminster could suffer a fire on the scale of Notre Dame's, or some similarly catastrophic failure, unless Parliament settles how it will pay for and carry out the restoration of its own home. The Commons public accounts committee (PAC) published its report this week. It describes years of repeated delay over how the work should be done and what it will cost.

The building is Grade I-listed and a Unesco world heritage site. Its Victorian fabric is held together by constant maintenance: regular plumbing failures, leaking roofs, and crumbling masonry shielded by a maze of scaffolding. The most serious problem is the persistent risk of fire, mainly from outdated electrics, which requires fire patrols round the clock. Maintenance now costs about £1.5m a week, and the committee says that without action the figure will soon reach £2m.

A recent estimate puts the full restoration at as much as £40bn, with work that could last six decades. The PAC estimates that every year of inaction adds roughly £420m to the programme's cost.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee, said there has been a "political allergy" to making decisions. He urged MPs to consider the damage to the UK's morale and reputation from a catastrophic failure, and to picture global rolling news footage of flames coming out of the roof, with the heritage destroyed or, worse, people injured or killed. "These are not notional possibilities, but real and rising risks," he said.

The decision belongs to MPs and peers rather than the government. The committee stressed that it is not its role to recommend a particular programme. Four refurbishment proposals, ranging from a nearly full departure from the estate to a version in which only the Lords would move, have been narrowed to two. A "full decant" would move staff to buildings on the north side of the estate, put the Commons in Richmond House, a nearby government building, and send the Lords to the QEII conference centre. It would take up to 24 years and cost about £15.6bn. A "staged decant" would have the Commons move into the Lords chamber for up to two years, and would run for 38 to 61 years at a cost of about £39.2bn.

The report is particularly concerned about the temporary accommodation. It calls the £417m estimate for refurbishing the QEII centre, and a bill of about £2bn to prepare the northern part of the estate for a decant, "very high". It notes that Canada installed a temporary chamber for much less while its parliamentary estate was refurbished. The committee also worries that the programme is being shaped around what temporary space is available, rather than the space being delivered to meet the programme's needs.

On governance, the PAC calls the current arrangements "far too complex" and wants them simplified. It proposes a new restoration and renewal select committee so MPs can hold senior officials to account. Within six months, it says, the clerks of the Commons and the Lords, who are nominally in charge of the process, should set out a plan to engage parliamentarians properly, something the report says has been lacking. It also asks for more robust cost estimates, a timetable leading to a decision on the main project in 2030, and a more urgent approach to finalising temporary accommodation for both chambers.

A parliament spokesperson said the report "provides welcome scrutiny" and acknowledged its conclusion that without action the Palace will, at best, be in a process of managed decline. They said work is already under way across the estate to keep staff and visitors safe. The next markers are the six-month engagement plan and the choice between the two options that MPs have so far put off.