MPs have been told that they may be moved out of Parliament for up to three years under a £350 million renovation plan, The Times has learnt.

More than 500 miles of water pipes, electricity and telephone cables need to be replaced for the first time since the Second World War — the last time that MPs had to relocate. There is also a potentially serious problem with asbestos, making it the most extensive refit since the mid-19th century, when Sir Charles Barry rebuilt the Palace of Westminster.

The Commons authorities fear that “anything could go wrong at any moment”, pointing out that in the past month alone there were 33 “steam” leaks from hot water pipes.

The Lords has no need for equivalent renovations.

As The Times revealed a year ago, MPs may be relocated to the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, a 1986 concrete monolith across Parliament Square, for two or three years. This location is favoured because it would allow other parliamentary offices in Millbank, as well as Portcullis House and offices above Westminster Tube station, to continue to operate within walking distance of the makeshift “chamber”.

Nick Harvey, spokesman for the House of Commons Commission, announced yesterday that it was inviting bids for a £250,000 feasibility study to examine the option of relocating. The study would examine if “substantial savings in cost, time and risk could be made by moving some operations of both Houses out of the Palace for a period,” he said.

No decisions will be taken until the study reports in the middle of next year, officials said. However, The Times has learnt that senior House of Commons officials overseeing the operation endorse the principle of closing Parliament, as attempting to complete the work during summer recesses could take 25 years. The shift in opinion has come despite criticism from MPs when the idea was floated a year ago, when Sir Patrick Cormack, a Tory traditionalist, declared himself “flabbergasted”.

House of Commons sources have raised the inflammatory possibility that they may ask peers, rather than MPs, to vacate their debating chamber, with the Commons sitting on the red benches, as happened briefly during the war. Senior House of Lords figures made it clear, however, that this would be “wholly unacceptable”.

The final decision will be made by the House of Commons Commission in consultation with MPs.

Commons places

— The present day Houses of Parliament were built after a fire in 1834 destroyed all but Westminster Hall, the crypt of St Stephen’s Chapel and the Jewel Tower

— Church House, the Church of England headquarters, was requisitioned for use by the Commons within days of its steel-framed hall surviving a Nazi bomb in 1940

— On May 10, 1941, a bomb destroyed the House of Commons chamber. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s replacement was first used on October 26, 1950

Sources: Parliament website; Times database

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