HOUSE OF CRUMBLES Only the mice ar e happy with perilous state of our P arliament

I It said: “If the palace were not a listed building of the highest heritage value, its owners would probably be advised to demolish and rebuild.” But no one really wants to k knock it down, not least because th there is a lot of really old, really coo cool stuff here. Th The doors to the Commons have the m marks from decades of Black Ro Rod banging on them. A All sorts of historical dA figures hav have hung out in Westminster Hal Hall, whose roof is held up by a ancient beams in place from the 14th century. A And t here are t he Mem Members’ cloakrooms that still have storage spaces in case you want to bring in your sword. Th The favoured solution for repa repairs is to move all MPs from the building and let the engin engineers get stuck in. Th That option has been tentativ tatively costed at about arou around £4billion – probably by the same bloke who did my bathroom. It would take about six years and would see MPs, staff, journalists – and probably mice – moved out wholesale to some nearby buildings while repairs are carried out.

Another option would be to try and do the work while MPs remain in the building.

But the sheer, mind- boggling logistics of trying to make that happen would mean work would take at least 30 years and add at least another £2billion to the cost.

So they really will have to go but the big question is where. There was a suggestion that rafts could be put on the River Thames to have some sort of floating Parliament.

That has, mercifully, been ruled out on the grounds that any lunatic with access to a submarine could sink the lot.

Catastrophic

More probable is shoe-horning the whole lot into some nearby buildings. The committee in charge of arrangements wants the Department of Health’s headquarters to host MPs, with Lords moving to the nearby QEII conference centre.

Work is due to start in 2023, assuming the old place makes it that far.

Although there are the usual hold-ups.

The Treasury Committee is investigating the Restoration and Renewal Committee to make sure taxpayers are getting value for money. But whatever happens needs to happen fast. One long-serving employee told us: “The state of the place is unbelievable, the quicker they get started the better.

“There are two really serious problems. The first is fire.

“There have been more than 50 incidents in the last few years but – thankfully – no real big one.

“The way the building is laid out, t here aren’t really enough precautions in place.

“So if a serious blaze was to break out we could lose the lot.”

The second problem described to us was about drainage.

The entire Palace of Westminster feeds into one main drain that is more than 130 years old.

He said: “If that was to break, we would be looking at a catastrophic event that would shut the thing down straight away.

“The whole place could be filled with decades’ worth of s***.”

Feel free to add your own punchline.