It is clearly essential that no more slippage against programme occurs if the target date is to be protected and the costs associated with any delays are not to increase

Presiding Officer, Sir David Steel

When a new Scottish Parliament building was originally suggested by the then Secretary of State for Scotland Donald Dewar, the estimated cost stood at �40m.

Following disclosures of rising costs, a cap of �195m was then put on the project but removed following a vote earlier this year by MSPs.

The parliament's Presiding Officer, Sir David Steel, revealed the increase in a letter to the finance committee.

Mr Steel said: "There have been a number of delays to individual construction packages, largely due to the fact that some design issues have taken longer to resolve than had been anticipated.

John Home Robertson: Defended project

"It is clear that there now has to be some re-sequencing of works to take account of the impact of delays.

"In practical terms, this has a number of likely consequences. Some contractors will have to be on site either at different times or else for longer than originally envisaged.

"Some off-site storage of materials may be required; additional cranes may be required on certain parts of the site at the same time and scaffolding may have to be erected and dismantled to a revised programme."

Sir David said a "definite cost" could not be put on the project.

He added: "Clearly we are deeply concerned at the fact that delays to the programme have the potential to have cost implications of this magnitude.

'Target date'

"It is clearly essential that no more slippage against programme occurs if the target date is to be protected and the costs associated with any delays are not to increase."

But the disclosure was met with fury from Scottish National Party MSP Margo MacDonald, a long-standing critic of the project.

She said: "I think the people concerned with this whole project are unprincipled shysters.

"Every time they have wanted to soften us up for something and said 'well it might cost a bit more, not as much as this perhaps, but we'll just put this down in the column anyway'.

Margo Macdonald: Outspoken attack

"They have no idea how much this is going to cost."

Labour MSP John Home Robertson, who is on the watchdog Holyrood Progress Group, defended the project, telling BBC Scotland: "It's a challenging project.

"It's a very exciting building and it's a building that's going to be as important to Scotland as Westminster is to the whole of the United Kingdom.

"We were never going to get that on the cheap."

The Scottish Tories said the increase was "yet another humiliation" for those involved in the Holyrood project.

Party finance spokesman David Davidson MSP said: "The fact that the cost has soared by almost seven times the original estimate to more than a quarter of a billion pounds is nothing short of a national scandal

"The public voted for a new parliament, not a politicians' palace."