But Conservative MP Sir Edward Leigh, who opposes the full decant option, said the proposals were “absurd”.<\/p>\n
“We should just repair the building like everybody else,” he told the BBC. “We can do it in bits.<\/p>\n
“We don’t have to have a full decant. I don’t think the MPs and peers, if they leave the building for 15 years, they’ll ever come back.<\/p>\n
“As far as the public are concerned, it’s a complete and utter waste of money.”<\/p>\n
In contrast, the Prospect trade union called for a full decant.<\/p>\n
“Successive governments and parliaments have been kicking the can down the road on restoration and renewal of the estate for years,” general secretary of the union, Mike Clancy said.<\/p>\n
He added: “Every report and expert assessment for more than a decade has found that a full decant is the safest and most value- for-money option. <\/p>\n
“This is the option which Parliament should back.”<\/p>\n
The restoration of Parliament has long been in the pipeline in Westminster. The parliamentary estate – which includes the House of Commons and the Lords – is crumbling and there are concerns about the risk of a catastrophic incident, such as a fire.<\/p>\n
Parliament says there have been 36 fire incidents, 12 asbestos incidents and 19 stonemasonry incidents since 2016.<\/p>\n
A parliamentary committee report from a decade ago warned that the Palace of Westminster “faces an impending crisis which we cannot responsibly ignore”.<\/p>\n
“Unless an intensive programme of major remedial work is undertaken soon, it is likely that the building will become uninhabitable,” it said.<\/p>\n
No action was taken for years but with falling masonry, lingering asbestos, regular fires and exploding toilets, everyone agrees the work needs to be done.<\/p>\n
However, there is no consensus on the way forward.<\/p>\n
Either way, taxpayers will have to pay for the works and pick up a bill that is expected to run into many billions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But Conservative MP Sir Edward Leigh, who opposes the full decant option, said the proposals were “absurd”. “We…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-409863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}