Question

To ask The Senior Deputy Speaker what is the total spend to date on the Restoration and Renewal programme; and what proportion of physical work under the programme has been carried out.

The total cost of the Restoration and Renewal (R&R) Programme, from 2020-21 until the end of 2025-26, is £537m. This includes the costs of the Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body and R&R Delivery Authority which were established in April and May 2020 respectively (including £5m of costs in April 2020 before the Delivery Authority was formally incorporated). It also includes the costs of R&R Client Team, which took over the sponsor function for the programme from the Sponsor Body in January 2023, the costs of the House of Lords R&R team, and Strategic Estates’ costs of developing the enhanced maintenance and improvement delivery option.

The total budgeted spend for the current financial year (2026-27) is £75m, which includes the costs of the Delivery Authority, the R&R Client Team and the House of Lords R&R team.

The Delivery Authority’s funding is based on what is required to deliver the key activities tasked to it by the R&R Client Team. The Delivery Authority seeks to ensure that its expenditure remains taut and proportionate for the activities required to deliver the Programme and constantly re-assesses its resources, scaling up or down as appropriate. Under the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Act 2019, the Parliamentary Works Estimates Commission (PWEC) is required to review Estimates for the Delivery Authority’s expenditure before the Estimate is laid and, in doing so, is required to consult HM Treasury. Prior to this, the Delivery Authority’s proposed budget is subject to scrutiny by the R&R Client Team and House finance teams, Delivery Authority Board, R&R Programme Board, and the R&R Client Board. The R&R Programme routinely publishes information on costs, for instance in quarterly reports, annual reports, and memoranda provided to PWEC.

No major construction work to the Palace of Westminster has yet been carried out as part of the R&R Programme. Under the 2019 Act, the R&R Programme is currently in ‘phase one’ in which no Palace restoration works, other than preparatory works, may be carried out. Approximately 10% of the Delivery Authority’s spend to date has been on surveying the Palace, with 16 intrusive surveys completed and over 1000 spaces surveyed. The Delivery Authority’s spend to date has also included designs costs for the Palace and for Lords temporary accommodation, programme management, data and digital (including developing a 3D Building Information Model of the Palace which is able to generate drawings and plans of any part of the building), procurement preparation, heritage audits and starting up the organisation from scratch.

In February 2026, the R&R Client Board (the two House Commissions meeting jointly) published a report ‘Delivering restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster: the costed proposals’ (HL Paper 229). This recommended that the Houses should be invited to agree to an initial package of works, defined as “phase one works”, which would be capped at £3 billion and include up to seven years of expenditure as well as financial commitment for completion of significant works that cannot be stopped at the end of the seven year period. It would include the preparation of temporary accommodation for both Houses, enabling works, early works and pre-construction activity. Parliamentary debates are expected to be scheduled to allow the Houses to agree the preferred way forward.