£250m for MPs' luxury offices

'The poor may be close to its (Labour's) heart, but they are some distance from its Commons majority. It likes to be even-handed about inequality. So the contradictions. First, money that might have been spent helping the worst-off expended on an unnecessary cut in the basic rate of tax for the majority. Secondly, public spending levels that will struggle for a year or two yet to reach Tory levels. Thirdly, a minimum wage already subject to ministerial mutterings and talk of exemptions for certain employers. Fourthly, no serious commitment to the policies required for full employment, far less policies to cope with a recession.' Ian Bell in the Scotsman, 31 st March 1999.

Row over huge sums spent on UK's costliest building

By Alison Hardie, Scottish Political Correspondent in the Scotsman

A LUXURIOUS office complex for Westminster politicians will cost the taxpayer £1.2 million for each of the 200 MPs who will use it, building industry experts predicted yesterday.

The bill for Portcullis House, being built in the shadow of Big Ben, will make it the most expensive building constructed in Britain, according to the trade magazine Building.

The £250 million price compares with the £50 million cost of the Scottish parliament at Holyrood, which will cater for 129 MSPs and their staff.

The design of Portcullis House is more traditional than Enric Miralles's modern plan for Holyrood. It will be clad in bomb-proof bronze (price tag £32 million) and be topped by a solid steel roof (cost £13 million) and reflect the splendour of the Houses of Parliament.

Although the cost was already public knowledge, the magazine claims to have uncovered exactly how it was possible to spend so much public money on an office complex.

The breakdown of the bill says that the furniture in each MP's office - including solid English oak tables and chairs - will cost almost £15,000.

The amenities in Portcullis House, minutes' walk from the bars, tea rooms and restaurants of Westminster, are similarly luxurious. Plants for a restaurant in a covered courtyard will cost £200,000, and after the fittings and fixtures are installed the final bill will be £700,000.

"It's over-designed, for Christ's sake," Building quoted one source at the project's construction manager, Laing. He added: "Over the top - but maybe that's what MPs want."

The no-expense spared trimmings of Portcullis House are not the full story. At £24 million, fees are, according to another of the magazine's sources, "horrendously high".

This figure includes legal costs for the acquisition of the 22,600 square metre site, but not the £1 million-plus cost of fighting a court case with a losing package contract bidder.

Other budgeted costs of Portcullis House include:

Easy chairs worth £200,000.

Office chairs at £600,000.

Courtyard paving worth £1.2 million

Blinds from the Louvre Blind Co costing £1.2 million.

The building is designed to provide offices and conference rooms for the back-benchers and their staff who cannot be housed in the Palace of Westminster. It has already run into problems after concrete "stitches" built into its sides were found to be too weak.

Portcullis House is designed to last more than 200 years and is on a difficult, cramped site above Westminster Underground station, which is undergoing major building works for the Jubilee Line extension.

Michael Russell, chief executive of the Scottish National Party, said last night: "It is extraordinary that offices for 200 Westminster MPs will come in at over three times the cost of the entire Holyrood parliament.

"There can be no justification for spending £15,000 on furniture for each MP and ordinary Scots will be horrified at this blatant misuse of public money. It appears that if a project is in London that money never seems to be a problem."

Several Labour MPs also appeared less than impressed at the cost of their new office accommodation.

John Cryer, MP for Horn-church, Essex, said: "MPs have a very good life and enjoy very good facilities and have standards of living that are far higher than the vast majority of people in Britain enjoy.

"The decision to spend £250 million on a new building is absolutely ludicrous, but it is entirely consistent with the previous Government's elitism and their contempt for ordinary people."

He added: "They are taking the taxpayers' money and spending it on the politically elite."

Ken Livingstone, Labour MP for London Brent East, said: "This is quite outrageous. I do not know why they did not just take over the old Greater London Council building and put MPs in there. You could have had a little escalator across the bridge at a fraction of the cost."

Mr Livingstone, who was leader of the now defunct GLC, added' "Michael Portillo, when he was a Tory minister, sold off this building for £50 million. You could have spent £50 million on improving it, and still got it at much less a cost than the present new building."

Architects design modern buildings with a 30-year life span at most. Building says: "The MPs' building is being built with the assumption that most of its features will still be in use in 2200. With the House of Lords set for radical reform, will the Commons follow? And if it remains, will all MPs work from London in 200 years?

"At £250 million a go, let's hope a replacement isn't needed soon."