Hello and welcome to The Rundown, a weekly podcast from Politics Home.

I'm your host, Alan Tolhuss. We're willing to discuss the ongoing saga of the failure to fix the crumbling Palace of Westminster is Dr. Alexandra Meekin, a politics lecturer at the University of Lees and an expert on the parliamentary restoration program. Dr Ruth Fox, director of the research group, the Hansard Society, and the

Labour MP Mark Tammy, who was a spokesperson for the parliamentary work sponsor body, which was set up to

help with the process of decanting both houses that has since been abolished, but more of that later.

So starting with you, Alexandra, you wrote a thesis on the Restoration and Renewal

Program. Can you tell us, you know, April 2023, where exactly are we with the plans to kind

of refurbish and fix up Parliament? Well, the crucial point is we're kind of going backwards,

we're not really much further forward than we have been,

you know, at any point over the last five years, really. It's five years since Parliament took the decision to move out entirely and commit to a major restoration programme. Obviously,

that hasn't started yet. As you mentioned, the key governance body that was set up to manage this project

has been abolished. So the program is now under new management and is now considering the way forward.

But it's a crucial year for restoration renewal because MPs and peers have said that this year,

they will finally sort of come back to the table,

think about new options to do this work ahead of a vote on what to do next in 24, 25.

So this year they really need to narrow down and make a decision again on what they're going to do.

Yeah, Ruth, can just talk to us a little bit about

why making a decision, whatever the decision is, is so important. The palace is a grade one listed

UNESCO World Heritage's site. It's burned down once before a long time ago, but there are lots of

fears it's going to burn down again. There's been, you know, people saying that it could be Britain's

Notre Dame and that sort of stuff. Why is it kind of so important that fixing Parliament does get done? Well, basically because the building and the infrastructure

systems inside it have outlived their working life. And there is now a considerable risk to the

safety of the building, to the possibility of fire risk. I mean, they've done an awful lot in

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