THE Palace of Westminster needs to be evacuated for multi-billion-pound emergency repairs if it is to avoid the increasing risk of being ravaged by fire or swamped in a sewerage flood, MPs have been warned.

Labour MP Chris Bryant, joint spokesman for the Committee on Restoration and Renewal, made the dire predictions as he argued against colleagues who want the work to take place around them. Even the fast-track repair option would take an estimated six years, and cost taxpayers some £3.5 billion.

Commons Treasury Committee chairman Andrew Tyrie said insufficient evidence had been produced to justify the restoration plan.

A mass of 252 miles of electrical cables scramble along the ceilings as they vie for space with gas pipes and the central hearing system, which sends temperatures soaring in hotspots across the cramped underground gangways.

Mr Bryant said it was “ironic” one of the “catastrophic failures” that risked endangering the building could come from a sewerage flood from the Victorian drainage system.

He said: “The main one which we have suffered historically is fire. Some kind of water flood, either cascading down, or cascading up through from the drains is another possibility.”