Will 2026 be the year MPs and peers agree how to repair Parliament?

MPs and MPs will soon have to make a big decision about whether they will leave Parliament House to allow essential maintenance works worth billions of pounds to be carried out.

House of Cards writer and colleague Lord Dobbs says the building is “just waiting for disaster”.

He says his advice to visitors is: “If they see someone running, please don’t stop and find out why they are running, just follow them.”

Former Labor Secretary Lord Hain agrees things need to change.

“This is turning into hell in Notre Dame,” he says, referring to the Paris cathedral A fire broke out in 2019.

“The House of Commons could burn down at any moment.”

A parliamentary commission report from ten years ago warned That the Palace of Westminster “faces an impending crisis that we cannot responsibly ignore”.

“Unless comprehensive remediation work is initiated soon, the building is likely to become uninhabitable,” the statement said.

A decision has been delayed for years, but now with falling walls, lingering asbestos, regular fires and exploding toilets, everyone agrees the job must be done.

Although there is general agreement on this issue, there is no consensus on how.

Parliamentarians are expected to be presented with three options to carry out the study in the first weeks of 2026:

• A complete evacuation, which will see both the House of Commons and the House of Lords temporarily moved to a different location
• A partial discharge leaves the House of Lords while the House of Commons remains in place
• An option labeled “advanced maintenance and improvement” that will perform improvements as part of a continuous series of work. This option will probably take the longest.

Alternative locations for an evacuated Parliament have been put forward, including the nearby QEII Conference Centre, Richmond House in Whitehall and even a floating barge on the Thames.

Previous report for 2022 He suggested that if the building were to be completely evacuated within 12 to 20 years, the complete evacuation could cost between £7bn and £13bn.

Keeping MPs in Parliament but using the House of Lords chamber would extend the works by seven to 15 years and increase costs by between £9.5bn and £18.5bn.

Allowing the House of Commons to operate throughout the works is estimated to take the project from 27 years to 48 years and increase costs by around 60% to between £11bn and £22bn.

A report by the Regeneration and Restoration Client Board, made up of MPs, peers and lay members, is expected to set out the updated costs, risks and benefits of each option and offer advice for the best or least painful choice.

Then, when the government schedules a vote, it will be up to MPs and MPs to make the final decision.

Lord Traitor stands behind a full evacuation, with previous reports suggesting it was a cheaper option.

Also the Parliament has already voted to leave. In 2018, lawmakers narrowly passed the principle of completely evacuating the building.

However, concerns about the costs of the project and the possibility of relocation led to a rethink and a new body (the Restoration and Regeneration Client Board) was established to re-examine the options.

Lord Traitor despairs over the delays. “This is a terrible advertisement for parliamentary democracy,” he says.

“If that were the case, people would be horrified.” [Parliament] “It was torn apart in a raging fire… and then I guess the focus would shift back to the politicians who were running, ducking, sliding back and kicking the can down the road.”

“This needs to be done now, and it needs to be done properly,” he says.

Baroness Smith, the government’s most senior minister in the House of Lords, told Radio 4’s Westminster Hour that she believed there was “no filter-free option” and that her preferred choice was to carry both houses.

“The money spent to keep the building in poor condition would be better spent on bringing the building into good condition.”

Conservative peer Lord Dobbs is not keen on MPs leaving the building.

“Are we going to have a great holiday from Parliament and democracy while the builders sort this out?” he asks.

Although he said he believed the House of Lords was doing an “extraordinary job”, he also acknowledged that the chamber was widely disliked by the public.

“If we cannot reverse this lack of understanding and dislike, it is very likely that we will go to the QEII Conference Center and never return.

“This will be the end of the House of Lords, an expert will draw a line on a piece of paper and wipe us out.

“I think removing us from here would greatly cut into our credibility, our authority and our ability to do anything to keep the government and the House of Commons in some sort of control.”

As a senior minister between 2019 and 2022, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg was partly involved in the decision to reconsider the options.

He is both skeptical about the estimated cost of MPs staying in Parliament while work is completed and suggestions that the building is on the verge of a devastating fire.

“I was on the committee that looked at the issue in the 2010-2015 Parliament, and we were told that if we didn’t act now, everything would be ruined,” he says.

“And here we are, 10 years or more later; we didn’t act immediately and the place seems still standing.”

He advocates blocking previous plans, saying the plan was “crazy, overly detailed and too expensive.”

Like Lord Dobbs, Sir Jacob does not support full evacuation, preferring instead that the work be done in stages.

“Once you move in the builders really own you and that’s when prices go up.

“The builders are great people and a lot of them are voters, so they are great people, but they have commercial interests.”

Whichever option MPs choose, the government will have to foot a multibillion-dollar bill to pay for the works.

Labor MP Jayne Kirkham, first elected in 2024, is keenly aware of the need for repairs.

His office is below the Speaker’s House, where he says the “gentlemen’s toilets” “regularly burst due to sewage.”

He will wait for the final report before deciding what to do, but said if moving meant the job would be done more safely and for less money, “that would seem to be the most sensible option.”

He reflects on the dilemma faced by politicians; He says as a new MP there are “a million things I want to do for Truro and Falmouth” and that fixing the building is not “absolutely at the top of the priority list”.

It also says parliamentarians have a “duty” to preserve Parliament “for future generations”.

“It’s a magnificent building; we’re very privileged to have it. It’s an iconic building and it would be terrible if anything happened to it.”

Another new MP from the 2024 recruitment has a different approach.

Liberal Democrat MP Edward Morello posted on social media: “Unpopular opinion: Get us out of here permanently. Make it a museum.”

You can listen to the interviews on BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Time on Sunday at 10pm BST and then on BBC Sounds.