Parliament at Risk of ‘Notre Dame-Style Fire’ as Restoration Costs Spiral, MPs Warn
The Palace of Westminster faces a Notre Dame-style fire or another “catastrophic event” if MPs do not urgently press ahead with its long-delayed restoration, a powerful Commons committee has warned.
In a report published on Wednesday, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said the risk of a disaster that could injure people and interrupt the functioning of UK democracy remains “real and rising” while decisions on the restoration and renewal programme keep being put off.
A building under strain
The Palace of Westminster is a Grade I-listed building within a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but behind its Victorian facade the fabric is in serious trouble. MPs were told the building suffers from failing mechanical and electrical systems, serious fire safety problems and high levels of asbestos.
The danger is taken so seriously that 24-hour fire patrols now walk the palace corridors to make sure no blaze breaks out. Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the MP who chairs the committee, warned: “We could wake up one morning and see flames coming out of the roof rather like Notre Dame.”
The report sketches the scene the committee fears most: global rolling news footage of Notre-Dame-like flames pouring from the building’s roof, “resulting in the destruction of our heritage, or worse, injuries or loss of life”.
Even without a fire, simply keeping the crumbling estate standing is getting more expensive. Maintenance currently costs around £1.5 million a week — and the committee expects that to climb to £2 million a week between 2026 and 2030.
The price of doing nothing
The committee’s most damning finding is financial. Every additional year of delay adds almost £420 million to the lifetime cost of the restoration programme — hundreds of millions of pounds spent simply standing still.
“Each kick of the can down the road costs hundreds of millions in public money,” Sir Geoffrey said.
Four options for the work have been examined, ranging in cost from £11bn to £56bn and lasting anywhere from 19 to 84 years. The cheapest and fastest is a “full decant” — moving all MPs, peers and staff out of the Palace while the work is done — priced between £11bn and £16bn and taking 19 to 24 years.
Keeping Parliament working in the building during the repairs, known as a partial decant, would take far longer and cost far more: between £20bn and £39bn over 38 to 61 years, the report says.
For now, MPs are being asked to back a seven-year package of initial preparatory works, capped at £3bn, to break the deadlock. That would see both Houses moved to temporary locations while offices are relocated outside the Palace. Parliamentarians are expected to narrow the four long-term options down to two, but the votes that were supposed to happen earlier this year have been delayed.
A vote that cannot wait
The committee also warned of more immediate embarrassments. “A lack of action risks, for instance, the chamber being plunged into darkness during the State Opening of Parliament,” Sir Geoffrey said — an image of the King in a darkened chamber that would be beamed around the world.
In its earlier warnings, the committee said there was a “real and rising risk” that the Palace could be destroyed before the restoration programme even begins. Wednesday’s report concludes that without action, the Palace of Westminster faces, at best, a “process of managed decline”.
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Featured image: The Palace of Westminster and Westminster Bridge, London. Photo by Mike Peel via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
