Two years ago, it was revealed that ‘much of the parliamentary estate’ would close that summer for ‘urgent renovation work’ amid fire safety concerns, after a report in September 2017 stated that the Houses of Parliament would receive a £118m upgrade, with the government having budgeted the money to pay for the 'eight-year' programme of fire safety improvements across its estate.
‘High pressure watermist systems’ were to be installed alongside sprinklers, with automatic fire detection and voice alarm systems, emergency lighting, dampers, fire signage, compartmentation, fire doors and the water systems to be fitted or replaced. The June 2018 report said that the ‘urgent’ work came ‘amid growing fire safety concerns’, with fire inspectors said to ‘roam the corridors 24 hours a day so that the building can pass the safety tests required to stay open’.
The fire safety improvement works programme, the ‘extensive fire safety renovation’ works, were said then to have to have been carried out to ‘address immediate safety concerns by the end of [2018]’, but MPs and officials warned that authorities were ‘miles behind’ on the work, while a senior official said the building was ‘another Grenfell waiting to happen’
Earlier in 2018, then Commons Speaker John Bercow was said to have ‘ignored’ findings of an internal audit on improving fire safety in the Houses of Parliament, with leaked documents showing that he ‘went against official advice and kept a policy that prevents fire alarms from sounding at Westminster’, even despite ‘increasing fears of a serious blaze’.
There had been 60 incidents since 2008 that ‘could have resulted in a serious fire’, with insiders adding that there were ‘about five fires a week’ on the site. Issues meant the building was ‘a calamity waiting to happen’, with the basement containing ‘fire hazards, asbestos, water leaks, seeping drainage units, outdated electrical systems and antiquated steam-powered heating apparatus’.
Fire was said to be the ‘most serious problem’, with many areas not having compartmentation, while gas pipes and electricity ‘run side by side’, and steel drip trays have been installed ‘to prevent leaking water falling directly on electric cables’. Additionally, electric cabling from the 1940s is clad in vulcanised Indian rubber ‘which turns to dust after a time’, and officials feared it has ‘turned to fine powder’ that could ‘easily set alight’.
Most recently, two clerks of work roles overseeing fire safety improvements were given to Hickton amid worries that ‘that restoring the Palace of Westminster will increase the threat of fire’. The work is said to be worth £250,000, and will include overseeing ‘three live projects and the completion of one major scheme’, with work scheduled to finish in December this year.
In May, the overall £4bn plan was ‘thrown into doubt’ after a ‘sweeping review’ of the project was announced, with ‘every option’ said to be ‘now back on the table’. Mrs Leadsom had argued in February 2019 that the palace risked ‘burning down’ if work did not begin ‘soon’, pleading with a parliamentary committee that the government was ‘desperately keen’ to ‘crack on’ with restoration work amid concerns over fire safety.
She cautioned at the time against ‘allowing history to repeat itself’ after the Palace of Westminster burned down in 1834, and noted that there are ‘significant measures’ in place to make sure the buildings conform to fire regulations, but a ‘lot of money’ needed to be spent improving drainage, sewage, wiring, plumbing and heating.
The Times has now hosted an opinion piece from Mrs Leadsom in which she outlined that ‘there’s a strange feeling of déjà vu before today’s debate on the restoration and renewal of parliament — the second in less than three years, after more than four decades of failure to act. Surely we should be using chamber time to focus on our Covid-19 recovery, not debating again whether to stay in the palace, or undertake a full decant’.
She added that the 2018 report set out ‘key facts that are still true today’, including that waking watches ‘are necessary to keep the million visitors a year and the 7,500 workers here safe and to retain our fire safety licence’. The ‘vexed’ issue of what to do is ‘not a case of whether we fancy moving out or staying here, it is that if we don’t move out, all the evidence points to a disaster that will force us out’.
Should that happen, Mrs Leadsom said that ‘the contingency arrangement for a catastrophic failure’ is a provisional chamber in Parliament Square ‘using curtains and temporary systems’, which is only ‘designed to last for a few weeks, at most’. The January 2018 decision for a ‘full decant to temporary alternative accommodation’ therefore planned for five to 10 years ‘that restoration requires’.
While some MPs argue for a permanent move, others ‘refuse to move out at all’, the choice to move to the newly built Richmond House ‘was not taken lightly’, with value for taxpayers’ money ‘vital’, as reviewing parliamentary security after the terrorist attack on site found ‘both security staff and MPs were more easily protected within the palace estate’.
As the building is ‘no longer needed for government business’ and is ‘situated within the estate’ though in ‘poor repair’, it was the ‘preferred choice for a permanent contingency site’. MPs could continue to work during the ‘vital mechanical and engineering work that was so long overdue’, and once complete it would ‘provide a permanent contingency location, an education and debating centre, a home for the parliamentary archives and the extra committee rooms we have long needed’.
With the COVID-19 lockdown having ‘demonstrated that many of us can work productively from home’, reviewing the plans is ‘to be welcomed’, but Mrs Leadsom urged MPs ‘against lobbying others to try to convince them we should stay in the palace and risk hindering this vital work’. Its last restoration was ‘because it burnt down’, and those pleading ‘we cannot spend this money should reconsider the cost of rebuilding from the ashes’.
She cited the ‘devastation’ at Notre-Dame and said that ‘we cannot allow a similar disaster to happen here’, but restoration ‘will create employment and training opportunities, apprenticeship and growth for small businesses and skilled craftspeople across the UK’, to ‘rightly form part of the palace’s historic legacy and its place for future generations to come’.