// = do_shortcode (‘[in-content-square]’)?>
Westminster and the Senedd. Right picture by Richard Szwejkowski (CC BY-SA 2.0).
It turned out to be costing £ 14 billion to repair the Palace of Westminster – enough to keep the Senedd going for over 220 years.
The plan to repair Westminster Parliament will be announced in the New Year and will see MPs move out for 20 years while repairs to the Victorian building are completed.
The price of £ 14 billion compares with the cost of £ 62.914 million to run the Welsh Parliament over the 2021-22 term.
It’s also more than half of the $ 22 billion
MPs were originally told that work on Westminster Parliament would only take six years and cost around £ 4 billion.
The building’s maintenance costs alone currently cost £ 127 million a year. Electrics, gas, water, heating and sewerage, all of which date from the 1880s, would need to be replaced.
The chairman of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg told the Times newspaper, which revealed the numbers, that it would be him “concerned whether these numbers are correct”.
“It is very important that the palace be restored, but it must be valuable to the taxpayer and there should be no gilding of the works,” he said.
In 2023, it will give MPs the opportunity to vote on proposals for the renovation, which should begin in 2027.
The UK Government said: “The Palace of Westminster must be protected for future generations as the home of British democracy, but when Parliament makes its final decision on how to proceed, it must be clear – as the government has always done – that it is doing this will provide good value for money for the taxpayer. “
