Converting the Houses of Parliament into 364 affordable flats could save millions of pounds and help tackle Westminster City Council’s housing shortage, campaigners claim.
Tenant group Generation Rent said moving politicians to Hull would save £120m over a five-year parliament in rent and staffing costs.
Plans drawn up by designer Jay Morton would see three bed affordable maisonettes making up the majority of flats in the ‘new look’ Westminster. Debating chambers could also be turned into swimming pools, forming part of a range of facilities to serve the local community.
Morton said: ‘This redevelopment would provide a unique opportunity to renovate the existing fabric of the building and provide much needed accommodation for those who live and work in the city while re-injecting a community back into the heart of the borough.’
Moving MPs to Hull – the area with the cheapest rent in England – would cut the rent bill to less than a third of its current levels, Generation Rent said.
Employment costs would also shrink by £20m under the move, while creating 5,000 badly needed jobs in a new region.
Alex Hilton, director of Generation Rent, said: ‘Renters are being crushed by high rents, poor conditions and almost no security of tenure. With their generous rent allowances from the taxpayer, MPs are cocooned from the housing crisis so they’re largely indifferent to the plight of renters.
‘One way our politicians could bear their share of austerity is if we relocated Parliament to the least expensive part of the country.
‘We hope our proposal gives MPs a sense of humility and some urgency to ending the housing crisis,’ he added.