Building work is continuing

And he insisted it would become one of the most outstanding examples of early 21st century architecture.

The project to build a new Scottish Parliament at Holyrood has been surrounded by controversy over its spiralling cost.

Last week MSPs voted to scrap the �195m limit which they set last year.

Those in charge of the project said they could not put a final figure on the price of the new building - which was initially estimated to cost nearer �50m.

Sir David is head of the corporate body of senior parliamentarians which took over responsibility for the building in 1999.

We are talking of a building for 200 years, not a dome for a year

Sir David Steel

He said the cost of the building had already reached �109m by the time they inherited the project.

Sir David said one of the problems was that Treasury rules required the cost of the project to be covered over just four years.

"We are talking of a building for 200 years, not a dome for a year," he told more than 130 people representing civic groups in Scotland.

"And I dearly wish that Treasury rules had permitted us to finance it in some way over a longer period than for the current four years."

He said there were a number of reasons for the increasing bill - including a heavier than expected workload for the parliament.

He also pointed to the 16% rate of inflation in the building industry in Edinburgh.

MSPs have removed the price limit on the project

And he said they had faced an early decision on either increasing the space by 50% or saddling future generations with the cost and inefficiency of renting extra buildings.

This had come about because original assumptions were for a "theoretical" parliament which had yet to come into existence.

However, he said some critics of the project wanted to keep fighting what he described as "battles of yesteryear".

"Unfortunately, some of those critics in re-fighting those battles niggle away at our continuing progress," he said.

Sir David insisted the Holyrood building would become "one of the outstanding examples of early 21st century architecture in Europe".

And he said no-one could argue that the parliament had failed to make a positive difference to Scotland.