COMMONS MAY MOVE
MPs fear secret plans have been drawn up to rebuild the crumbling House of Commons – in Northampton.
They suspect a £4billion bill for vital restoration work from 2023 will escalate and once they have moved out for six years they will never come back.
Labour’s Stephen Pound said: “Delays will run into years and they will say, ‘Let’s turn Parliament into a museum and build a new one somewhere else.’ We will be hurled into the outer darkness, never to return.”
Precedent allows Parliament to sit at York, Lincoln, Salisbury, Oxford or Northampton.
Mr Pound a dded: “Northampton would be favourite because it is in the middle of the country.”
MPs are s uspicious because officials agreed to silence Big Ben for repair for four years – from tomorrow – while they were away on holiday, so they could not object. The Ayrton light in the top of the tower, installed to show Parliament is sitting, is also due to go out for the first time since World War Two. It is also being repaired.
They think another fast one may be pulled over repairing the rest of the building if costs overrun and it is cheaper for the taxpayer to build a new Parliament.
Tory Nigel Evans said: “If we have to go, it’s possible we’ll never come back.” A DIABETIC tourist, 62, got peed off on his first visit to Salisbury after spending three hours locked in a public toilet, which shut early. EMERGENCY crews raced to reports of a “body” in a creek and fished out a life-sized, stuffed Dracula doll in Modesto, California.