Labour’s Chris Bryant revealed the building is such a fire risk people are employed 24hrs a day looking for blazes – and that they have spotted 12 in the past year
WHILE MPs voted to move out of the Houses of Parliament last week so vital repairs could take place, underneath them in the labyrinthine basements staff were looking for signs of a fire.
But this was not a rarity – the crumbling Palace of Westminster is such a fire risk that people are employed to walk around 24 hours a day on the lookout for a blaze breaking out.
This was just one of the startling facts revealed to The Sun when we were given a tour of the chaotic maze of corridors this week by Labour’s Chris Byrant.
The MP, who was joint spokesman for the Committee on Restoration and Renewal of the grand estate, began by showing off a messy nest of somehow still-functioning telephone cables, saying he couldn’t believe it was still operational.
It was indicative of the whole basement, which was chock full of massive steam-filled pipes, next miles and miles of electrical cable, communications equipment and asbestos-laced brickwork.
And he said this was one of the reasons his colleagues were right to vote in favour of leaving Parliament altogether for around six years so that the £3.5billion works can take place.
MPs voted by 236 to 220 to support a full programme of repairs, which will see them move out of the Victorian-era palace for the first time since the Commons chamber was destroyed by a bomb in 1941.
Explaining how decades of work had been built on top of each other, he said: “This corridor, which looks quite narrow, it should be three times as wides as it is.
“That’s how it was designed. And the ceiling should be going up further.”
Adding: “Lots of this is cased in asbestos and one of the difficulties is we simply don’t know where each of these bits is connected to.”
He explained that due to the inaccessibility of lots of the basements, it is impossible to put wired fire alarms in all areas.
But because of the way it is built, with huge amounts of lead, there are signal blackspots so wireless fire alarms do not work with, leading to a rather bizarre solution.
Mr Byrant explained: “We have to have officers patrolling the building 24 hours a day, basically looking to see whether there’s a fire.
“Now we’ve managed to catch 12 in the last year alone, but there are some areas which are so inaccessible, that there’s a real danger we could have a massive fire, which would seize hold of the building. And then we’d be out forever.”
Not all MPs were happy with the plan to leave Parliament, with many on favour of plans to complete the work around them, at much larger cost to the taxpayer.
But Mr Bryant, who has been involved with the restoration project for a decade, said the decision to completely decant was the right one.
He said: “Yes there will be inconvenience for this generation of politicians if we move out, but at the same time, this building isn’t mine, it isn’t ours as MPs.
“We’re trustees for a future generation.”
He explained how much of the current work will have to be ripped out again in a few years when they leave, saying how important it was to leave as quickly as possible.
Mr Bryant said: “In the end, every year that we keep on delaying doing the work, we’re doing more bits and pieces like this, just to keep the show on the road, patching and mending rather than doing the full body of work.”
It came after The Sun revealed taxpayers face a repair bill of £442million for essential works to Parliament – even before MPs and Peers move out in around 2025.
