If one of the UK’s most surveyed buildings keeps finding asbestos, few property owners can assume their own records are complete
More asbestos has been found across the Palace of Westminster and the wider parliamentary estate, according to figures the BBC obtained through a Freedom of Information request. Known asbestos items, including insulation, roofing, floor tiles and ropes, now number more than 1,650. That is an increase of 500 since 2021, even though 700 items have been removed over the past five years.
Parliamentary authorities said the additional items were found during surveys in preparation for the long-awaited refurbishment of the estate, a project that could cost up to £40bn and take 61 years. Most of the asbestos is classed as low risk under Health and Safety Executive guidelines, but almost 200 items are rated medium risk and may require remedial works.
Gaps in the record
Damien Abraham, director at DOA Underwriting, said the finds carry significant implications for the wider UK building stock, particularly offices, schools and hospitals. Asbestos records are rarely complete, he said, even after decades of extensive surveying, hidden voids, service risers, redundant plant rooms and boxed-in pipework can conceal asbestos-containing materials. Layers of alterations made between the 1950s and the 1990s have often obscured, encapsulated or simply overlooked them.
Survey limitations are also unavoidable. Management surveys are designed to identify asbestos during normal occupation rather than uncover every concealed material. Refurbishment and demolition surveys are more intrusive, but still depend on access and on details of past works and surveys.
“The broader message is that asbestos should still be treated as a live asset management issue, not a historical one. The absence of recorded asbestos is not necessarily evidence of absence,” Abraham said.
Polly Sayers, associate (RFL) and insurance market analyst at HCR Legal LLP, said asbestos may suffer from a degree of apathy because it has been a talking point for so long that it no longer feels like a new story for insurers. Yet it is still being identified in buildings and materials where it had previously been missed, and is being dealt with on a daily basis.
What underwriters should be asking
For contractors, an unexpected discovery during refurbishment can expose workers, occupants and third parties to fibres. It can also bring work stoppages, emergency remediation costs, delays and disputes over responsibility for the additional costs, Abraham said. Surveyors, project managers and designers can face allegations that surveys were inadequate or that controls were not implemented.
For insurers, the exposure spans employers’ liability, public liability, contractors’ all risks and professional indemnity. Because asbestos is present across large portions of the ageing building stock rather than confined to isolated properties, he said, insurers also face aggregation risk.
Abraham said refurbishment projects in pre-2000 buildings increasingly call for scrutiny of three things: the quality and age of asbestos surveys, whether a refurbishment and demolition survey has been completed before intrusive works, and the competence of asbestos consultants and licensed removal contractors.
On historic buildings, Jo Whyman, risk management director at Ecclesiastical Insurance, said work often requires specialist craftspeople who understand both traditional construction methods and the importance of appropriate controls. “The selection of competent contractors, supervision, permits and controls cannot be overstated, as they all play a vital role in managing these risks,” he said.
Exposure then, claims now
Sayers said exposure that happened decades ago still carries live claims potential, which is the defining feature of long-tail liability. Employers’ liability policies respond to mesothelioma claims according to when the exposure occurred rather than when the disease is diagnosed, as the Supreme Court confirmed in the 2012 “trigger” litigation, Durham v BAI (Run Off) Ltd.
“Just because you’ve put an exclusion in place going forward doesn’t protect you from that historical exposure point,” she said.
It is one reason the market is watching PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals, so closely. Sayers said PFAS mirrors asbestos in how widely it has been used and how quickly the science is evolving, and brokers should expect the same question: which policy was in force when the contamination began. The two differ, because PFAS does not break down in the environment and does not yet have a signature disease. But in both cases, she said, liability “can quietly build up in buildings, in land, and in policy archives and can surface long after the decisions that created it”.
Parliament’s surveys suggest that, for asbestos at least, the full extent of that exposure is still being uncovered.
