{"id":33696,"date":"2022-07-01T17:00:54","date_gmt":"2022-07-01T16:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsblogsnew.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=33696"},"modified":"2022-07-01T17:00:54","modified_gmt":"2022-07-01T16:00:54","slug":"parliament-restoration-delays-cause-skills-and-money-losses-house-of-commons-public-accounts-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=33696","title":{"rendered":"Parliament restoration delays cause skills and money losses: House of Commons Public Accounts Committee"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-33697\" src=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Houses_of_Parliament_Parliamentary_image_300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"201\" \/>A report published by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee finds that Parliament restoration and renewal programme delays are leading to loss of skills, increased risk of health and safety incidents and \u2018wasteful\u2019 spending.<\/h3>\n<h6><em>image: Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament<\/em><\/h6>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em><span style=\"color: #800080;\">\u2026 progress on the restoration and renewal of Parliament is \u2018unacceptably slow\u2019\u2026<\/span><\/em><\/h2>\n<p>The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee writes:<\/p>\n<h2>Failures of transparency and accountability and \u201cwasteful, nugatory\u201d spending<\/h2>\n<p>In a report today [29 June 2022] the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee says progress on the restoration and renewal of Parliament is \u201cunacceptably slow\u201d with the \u201clikely start date for major works pushed back by many years because of repeated attempts to revisit the basis of the programme\u201d. The Committee says it must not take \u201canother catastrophic incident to finally galvanise action and focus minds.\u201d#<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/publications.parliament.uk\/pa\/cm5803\/cmselect\/cmpubacc\/49\/report.html\">Read the full report (HTML)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/committees.parliament.uk\/publications\/22821\/documents\/167683\/default\/\">Read the full report (PDF)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/publications.parliament.uk\/pa\/cm5803\/cmselect\/cmpubacc\/49\/summary.html\">Read the report summary<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/committees.parliament.uk\/work\/6485\/restoration-and-renewal-of-parliament\/publications\/\">Find all publications related to this inquiry, including oral and written evidence<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Since the start of 2016 there have been 25 fire incidents in the Palace and 13 incidents of falling masonry. The House authorities have spent large amounts of taxpayers\u2019 money to mitigate health and safety risks, \u201cincluding \u00a3140 million to install temporary fire safety systems\u201d alone.<\/p>\n<p>There has been an \u201cunacceptable cloak of secrecy around the programme\u201d with \u201cHouse authorities\u2019 failure to manage asbestos incidents transparently, or with alacrity\u201d underlining \u201can approach which does not welcome scrutiny\u201d. The \u201cfailures of transparency and accountability\u201d include the House administrations being three months late sharing information on a recent asbestos incident with those impacted.<\/p>\n<p>The Committee saw \u201dno evidence to justify\u201d the House of Commons Commission\u2019s proposal to \u201creverse decisions from both Houses of Parliament\u201d and abolish the project Sponsor Body &#8211; which was set up in 2019 \u201cprecisely to take the oversight of this huge project out of the political arena\u201d. The CEO of the Sponsor Body does not know why this was proposed; there is no evidence alternative options were considered, and the \u201csuggestion that the House authorities oversee the works does not seem viable,\u201d given their previous performance with Portcullis House and \u201cmore recently the Elizabeth tower renovation, which is almost triple its original \u00a329 million budget.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The two House Commissions have asked for further options to be explored \u201cbut is unclear how the higher costs\u201d, \u201cenormously longer time\u201d &#8211; an extra 15 to 48 years &#8211; and added \u201cextraordinary health and safety risks\u201d of a continued presence during the building works can be managed.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chair&#8217;s comments<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Dame Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe House authorities have unilaterally taken this massive, critical project of huge national, historical, cultural and political significance back to the drawing board; reversing decisions by both Houses, with no justification for wrecking the plan that was underway &#8211; if tortuously slowly &#8211; and no assurance that they can actually deliver the works they now envisage. This cannot be acceptable in anyone\u2019s book.<\/p>\n<p>The new arrangements must have the transparency and independence to come up with a proper, deliverable, risk-managed plan at acceptable costs. Of course, current Members and authorities care deeply about this place and its restoration but this project will outlast any contemporaneous interests or cohorts and must be taken out of their hands. It is inconceivable that this building at the heart of our nation\u2019s life should be allowed to deteriorate further \u2013 or worse, that those working or visiting the Palace are put in physical danger &#8211; by the inability of the current generation of residents to come to and stick to a decision about how to proceed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/committees.parliament.uk\/committee\/127\/public-accounts-committee\/news\/171771\/failures-of-transparency-and-accountability-and-wasteful-nugatory-spending\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more&#8230;.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A report published by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee finds that Parliament restoration and renewal programme delays are leading to loss of skills, increased risk of health and safety incidents and \u2018wasteful\u2019 spending. image: Parliamentary copyright images are &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=33696\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33696"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33698,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33696\/revisions\/33698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}