MSPs begin move to Scottish Parliament
Five years after the Scottish Parliament took up its legal powers, MSPs are preparing to move into their first permanent home.
Since the Parliament was established in 1999, MSPs have been sitting on the Mound in Edinburgh, in what was originally meant to be a temporary arrangement.
Over the summer recess, beginning on Friday, MSPs, staff and media will move to the Holyrood building at the bottom of the Royal Mile.
The site at Holyrood was first earmarked in 1998, and the building was scheduled for completion in 2001 at a cost of around £55 million. It is now estimated to have cost £430 million.
The official opening will be on Saturday October 9th.
Presiding Officer George Reid said: “It will be a day for the whole community of Scotland – a day of quiet Scottish dignity. It will have three elements: a morning meeting in Old Parliament Hall, a Riding down the Royal Mile and the formal opening of the new Holyrood Parliament building by The Queen.
“The opening on October 9th marks a new beginning – an opportunity for all of us to concentrate on why we are here: not to build a building, but to build a better Scotland.”
The ceremony will cost £210,000.
The SNP have consistently attacked the building project, blaming the overruns on Labour.
On Tuesday a report into the building by the Auditor General suggested that money could have been saved if design work had been better carried out.
Shadow Finance Minister Mr Fergus Ewing MSP said: “I have argued for some time that the total costs should have been approximately £150 million less than the actual cost, currently estimated at £431 million, which appears to be what the Auditor General has now concluded with £80 million for extra “design development” and £86 million for “disruption and delay”.
“Those errors lay in a wholly unrealistic timetable, the choice of site, the mismatch of the architectural team, the choice of Construction Management, where the client – the taxpayer – picks up the tab, and the selection of a Construction Manager whose bid was substantially more than the lowest bidder.”
“The Report identifies what the extra cost has been as a result of the failures in the process, and particularly design slippage.”
Lord Fraser’s inquiry into the building of the Parliament, and its delay is expected to be published in late August.
