MPs get 'world's most expensive desk'

QUESTION: What has a glass top, seats two people and costs more than a three-bedroom house in Liverpool? Answer: the reception desk in the new House of Commons building.

The desk, which will have an opaque glass top and a limestone front, has a budget of pounds 83,000. Even MPs are embarrassed, describing the cost of their new piece of furniture as "outrageous" and "extravagant". The bill, of course, will be met by the taxpayer.

Portcullis House, which will house 200 MPs and their secretaries, is almost pounds 100m over budget and will cost pounds 250m to build. The interior fittings alone in the new parliamentary offices will cost more than pounds 12.5m.

The oak tables in the MPs' offices will cost pounds 500,000 and the fixtures and fittings in the Parliamentary shop have a budget of pounds 1.5m. The budget for "easy chairs" is more than pounds 220,000, and for the paving -stones in the block's extravagant courtyard, where a fountain is planned, it will exceed pounds 1m.

Norman Baker, Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes, described the reception desk as "an outrageous waste of taxpayers' money", that must be "the most expensive desk in the universe".

The money spent on the desk alone would buy two terrace houses in Burnley, a flat in Balham, south London, or a cottage in the Kent countryside.

The House of Commons defended the cost of the piece of furniture as "reasonable".

"The desk has a glass top which will be opaque rather than clear. It has got cupboard space," said a spokesman for the building project. "The desk is in keeping with the high quality of the building."