News reports suggest that the long-delayed Restoration and Renewal of the Palace of Westminster will be accelerated in response to the devastating fire at Notre Dame. Alexandra Meakin and Alexandra Anderson discuss why progress has been slow and the need for action to address the fire risk in Parliament.

The devastation at Notre Dame in April 2019 is a stark reminder of the dangerously high fire risk facing the Palace of Westminster. The home of the UK Parliament has been very lucky to escape its own catastrophe, with ‘sixty-six incidents that had the potential to cause a serious fire’ since 2008. Wardens have been patrolling the Palace 24 hours a day in order to mitigate the major fire risks and to address the inadequate fire alarm systems. Part of the problem is due to the very structure of the building, as after the devastating fire which destroyed the old building in 1834, the rebuilt Palace included an extensive ventilation system that ‘unintentionally create[d] ideal conditions for fire and smoke to spread through the building’.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Thursday 25 April, the Labour MP Chris Bryant highlighted the Notre Dame fire in order to call attention to the urgent need for the Restoration and Renewal of the Palace of Westminster (R&R) to be carried forward as soon as possible. Bryant, a long-running campaigner for rebuilding the Palace of Westminster (and potential candidate for Speaker should a vacancy arise during the current parliament), noted that while the fire in Paris had caused unimaginable destruction, there had been no fatalities. It would, he warned, be very different if such a fire was to take hold in the Palace of Westminster, where 9,000 people work every day and one million people visit each year.

The fire risk in Westminster has been well-known for years. A 2012 report set out the need for the major refurbishment programme in order to address the fire and flooding risk caused by the buildings’ dilapidated infrastructure that is decades past its expected lifespan. Four years later, the Joint Committee on the Palace of Westminster emphasised the growing risk to the building, warning that:

‘there is a substantial and growing risk of either a single, catastrophic event, such as a major fire, or a succession of incremental failures in essential systems which would lead to Parliament no longer being able to occupy the Palace.’

The Committee called for action without further delay, to ‘restore and renew this historic building for the future, and to ensure that the Palace of Westminster is preserved for future generations’. Continue reading →