07 November 2003
Ministers and civil servants have been accused of knowingly underestimating the costs of the Holyrood Scottish Parliament building, which have soared to £400m, ten times the original estimate.
At the official inquiry into the project in Edinburgh this week, John Campbell QC challenged senior official Robert Gordon about the estimated £50m–£55m cost, given when the Holyrood site was chosen in 1998, compared with £65m for an alternative site.
He asked why a press release at the time quoted the figures but did not include VAT or consultants' fees.
Campbell referred to a Scottish Office competition inviting architects from all over the world to produce designs, suggesting that civil servants knew that the early cost estimates were wrong.
He asked Gordon: 'By the time we come to the competition, anyone who says we can build a Parliament for £50m knows it to be wrong, don't they?' Gordon admitted this was so.
Campbell added: 'My problem with the £50m–£55m figure is that it's not really the whole story, is it?' He said it excluded demolition costs and the costs of refurbishing a listed building, Queensberry House, which is part of the Parliament complex.
The refurbishment was estimated at up to £7m and appeared to exclude VAT and fees. Campbell went on: 'Even at the upper end of the bracket, wasn't that a figure that was economic with the reality?'
Gordon stressed that a press release announcing the Holyrood site had given an estimated figure of £50m but had made it clear that the final cost of the Parliament building would depend on the final design, the fees negotiated with the successful architect and the outcome of the competition.
Gordon, now head of the Crown Office in Edinburgh, was in charge of the Scottish Office constitution group after Labour's 1997 victory and was responsible for implementing the devolution plans.
Asked by Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, the inquiry chair, why a decision on the winning site had to be taken so quickly, Gordon said that the then Scottish secretary, the late Donald Dewar, felt he had a duty to use what was an historic opportunity to put into place a suitable permanent home for the Parliament.
PFnov2003
