Severe flooding plays havoc with telephone lines in Parliament
Severe flooding has played havoc with the telephone lines in Parliament.
Engineers were called to the parliamentary estate after exceptionally heavy rainfall caused "intermittent faults" with the lines.
Tottenham MP David Lammy advised constituents attempting to contact his office to email instead.
Due to floods (!) the phones are down in Parliament at the moment. Tottenham folk if you are trying to get through on the phone line please email me for with casework issues: mail@davidlammy.co.uk.
-- David Lammy (@DavidLammy) May 30, 2018
A House of Commons spokesman said: "Due to severe flooding, there are intermittent faults on a number of telephone lines on the estate.
"We are working to restore connectivity as soon as possible."
The flood is the latest in a string of incidents that led MPs and peers to agree to an ambitious restoration and renewal programme for the Palace of Westminster.
Many of the pipes and cables that carry heat, water, electricity and gas in the building were installed just after the Second World War and some of them date from the 19th century.
The building also caught fire 40 times between 2008 and 2012, leading one peer to brand Parliament "dangerous".
In January managers at Westminster revealed they had to take action to tackle bed bugs living in upholstery.
The ambitious multibillion-pound restoration programme, agreed in February, will see parliamentarians decamp to temporary accommodation for at least six years, although not until the middle of the next decade.
A lengthy debate in the House of Lords saw a number of suggestions over where Parliament could move to, including Buckingham Palace and even the Palace of Versailles in France.
