Parliament must move in order to restore its home

The palace’s Restoration and Renewal Board has published costed proposals for the work and they are extraordinary. Despite parliamentarians favouring staying in residence during the work, decanting would save £25bn and shave 40 years off the programme.

This cannot be ignored.

Parliament must bite the bullet and take a lead from us at RIBA. Faced with the necessity of renovating our listed headquarters in Portland Place, we chose to fully evacuate the building, leaving the builders a clear run to do the fastest and most efficient refurbishment, thus delivering the best value-for-money outcome.

Parliament must do the same. In addition to financial savings, a full decant will be safer, more secure and more accessible. It will carry a lower heritage risk and emit less carbon.

The alternative of a six-decade-long refurbishment at huge cost runs the risk of being a fiasco and has serious risk implications.

Of course, decanting poses the issue of temporary accommodation. The current proposal for this, the Northern Estate, is not yet fit for occupation and is likely to provide cramped and disaggregated space, which will not be good for the smooth running of government, parliament or its staff.

A single new commercial office building should be considered as temporary accommodation, as it could offer secure, high-quality space for two decades if needed. If carefully designed, it could revert to profitable commercial space later.

Jack Pringle, chair of the board of trustees, Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)