... as bill for Commons revamp may hit £20bn

BORIS JOHNSON is set to be warned that the controversial restoration plan for the Palace of Westminster could cost as much as £20 billion – four times original estimates.

The shock figure is understood to be contained in a confidential report prepared for the Prime Minister by Government experts at the Infrastructure and Projects Authority.

A well-placed source said that the IPA looked at the massive revamp plan – which involves MPs and peers moving out for years to allow the works to proceed – and warned it could cost between £10 billion and £20 billion.

But as the original estimates were up to £6 billion, senior DUP MP Ian Paisley Jnr last night called for the so-called ‘decant’ option to be shelved. He said: ‘I voted for the option to move out and get the work done as Parliament does need a revamp.

‘But if we are now being warned the cost could more than treble to £20 billion, we just can’t go ahead with the scheme as planned. We’re told that sort of money would buy us Boris Johnson’s bridge from Northern Ireland to Scotland. It’s a huge amount of public cash and we owe it to taxpayers to put a hold on the decant option and get these costs down.’

But sources close to the body set up to oversee the ambitious plan angrily hit back last night, insisting there was as yet no detailed IPA report and that the new figures were ‘entirely speculative’.

They also insisted that no final costs would be put before MPs until 2022 for them to approve.

A Restoration and Renewal spokesman said: ‘We will not make any premature commitment on costs. We need to conduct all the investigations and surveys, understand the client requirements and then make preliminary designs to establish the true scope of the programme of work.’

The Cabinet Office last night made clear there can be ‘no blank cheque for this work’ but stressed the project had not yet been ‘fully scoped’.