Costs of leaky parliament double in ten years

Cast your minds back to the new millennium: Tony Blair was in power, Robbie Williams top of the chart. It was the year the Dome opened; so too did Portcullis House in Westminster. Back then, the £235 million parliamentary office was predicted to last two centuries when it opened, thanks to its supposed quality workmanship and premium materials. But fast forward 23 years and PCH is ageing about as well as Blair’s pledge to be ‘purer than pure’.

Last month, water poured into the PCH atrium after a ‘huge bang’, leaving the area fenced off with scaffolding underneath. It was just the latest in a series of issues that have plagued the central courtyard’s glazed roof, with a written parliamentary answer confirming there have been at least two other breakages reported since 2019 and 12 recorded leaks since 2018. Previously reported incidents include breakages in 2005, 2008 and 2014.

In 2014 it was revealed that repairs to cracks in the roof had cost £36,000 over five years – an annual cost of £7,200.