UK Edition
Peers banned from using toilet after Westminster’s Victorian drainage system flooded on EU referendum day
Hundreds of Lords and their staff have been banned from using the toilet during heavy rainfall after Westminster’s creaking Victorian drainage system caused major flooding earlier this year.
Peers have been told that loos will be out of bounds and taps switched off during a severe downpour as a “precaution” in parts of the parliamentary estate.
The diktat comes from a committee of Lords and applies to Millbank House, a building which houses almost 140 peers and hundreds more backroom staff.
The building’s basement floor was flooded with sewage on June 23 – the date of the EU referendum – after a combination of heavy rainfall and a high Thames tide caused chaos.
Minutes from an October 11 meeting of the Services Committee, made up ofpeers and parliamentary clerks, shows their plan for avoiding future floods in the building.
“In the event of exceptional rainfall being forecast, toilets would not be used in order to minimise the amount of water or sewage entering the basement, and mains water tanks would be shut off,” they concluded.
It comes after Westminster suffered its most serious flooding for years on the day of the EU referendum, causing mayhem behind the scenes.
The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered the full extent of the damage, which saw power outages, forced office evacuations and buildings closed for days.
Parliamentary officials are so concerned by how exposed the Palace of Westminster’s century-old piping and electricity cables are that they want refurbishments approved as soon as possible.
The problem has come to a head after a mass failure of Parliament’s Victorian drainage system on EU referendum day due to an unexpectedly heavy downpour.
The rainfall caused delays at polling stations in London – widely covered at the time – but the scale of damage at Parliament has never been made public.
The Palace of Westminster – which includes the House of Commons and Lords and was rebuilt after the fire of 1834 – was one of the worst affected buildings.
Rainwater poured into the basement, forming pools near high voltage cables that carry electricity through the building and triggering a power cut, this newspaper has learnt.
Parliament’s fire alarms began to malfunction, forcing officials to patrol the building more regularly to spot problems after being effectively blinded by the failing system.
The building’s historic fittings were also affected as water dripped from the ceiling in the House of Lords’ division lobbies, where peers cast their votes on the country’s legislation.
Buckets were scrambled into place to collect falling rainwater but failed to protect the carpet, which was eventually replaced.
It was not just Parliament affected. Conservative Campaign Headquarters, which houses party staff and is five minutes’ walk from Parliament, saw its basement flooded with sewage after the drain malfunctioned.
Staff attempting to monitor the EU referendum were emailed with a warning to avoid the area, being moved upstairs to work. A Tory source joked: “We lost a Prime Minister and the lower ground floor on the same day.”
A nearby pub, the Westminster Arms, also had its basement deluged in sewage due to the drainage problems. Dozens of crates of champagne, beers and spirits had to be binned, while the pub remained closed for five days.
“We had to throw everything out, all our fridges and all our stock in the lower bar,” Gerry Dolan, the pub’s landlord, told The Sunday Telegraph. “I’ve been here 23 years and it was never as bad as that.”
In total, at least seven sites across Westminster were affected. Water poured into the tiled basement of Old Palace Yard. Power was cut in Norman Shaw South, which houses dozens of MPs and their staff, with some offices evacuated. And then there were the issues at Millbank House.
The cause of the problem has been pinned on the Victorian network of pipes under Westminster that at times pumps sewage into the Thames – but can fail when the river is at high tide.
Parliamentary officials now want a long-delayed renovation plan that would see MPs and peers moved out of the building for works costing billions of poundsto be agreed as soon as possible.
A House of Lords spokesperson said: “It’s not unusual for buildings close to the Thames to be at risk of flooding when exceptional rainfall combines with a high tide.
"Since the flooding of Millbank House earlier in the year we have taken a number of measures, such as replacing the defective flood protection valves, to reduce the chance of it happening again. We have also taken steps to mitigate flood damage.
“The limitations of London’s Victorian sewer system mean that these measures cannot completely guarantee that the flooding of the building won’t occur again. However, this should be resolved in the longer term by the completion of the Thames Tideway project.”