𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

When I saw my grandmother for the first time after I’d joined the House of Commons press gallery she had a question which struck me as odd. She didn’t ask if I bumped into David Cameron or whether Ed Miliband was on course to be the next Prime Minister. Instead, she enquired with the utmost seriousness: “How are the loos?”

I think of her prescient question about the plumbing in this partly ancient, crumbling building every time I catch a waft of sewage on the way to my desk. She could have also asked: “How are the mice?”

If you work late there is a very decent chance one will come and appear for a scamper around your feet. You see these little rodents dashing around the floor of eating places in both the older and more modern parts of the estate. If Pixar ever wants to film a sequel to Ratatouille with a political twist, setting it in the Palace of Westminster would be entirely credible.

It is not at all uncommon to start the morning by walking down an escalator that has stopped working, trudging up multiple flights of stairs because the lift is out of order, and then nipping to a loo and discovering it is in a state of distress.

The chaos is not limited to the centuries-old parts of the parliamentary estate. In fact, the most venerable areas, like Westminster Hall, are those which feel sturdiest.

The new-fangled Portcullis House, where many MPs have their offices, has a spectacular glass roof over a giant atrium. I was sitting underneath it when a great glass panel cracked and gallons of water poured down with a fury that would have had Noah running to the Ark.

A spider’s web of netting was installed in case other panes collapse. It adds to the sense the place is held together (at colossal expense) with sticking plasters.

In winter, Portcullis House is brain-crackingly cold. Sit for too long in the hope of meeting an interesting MP and a freezing sensation captures your lower limbs. And in summer, you’ve guessed it, it is as hot as a greenhouse on Venus.

There are regular whispers that the Houses of Parliament are in danger of being consumed in an inferno. It’s sobering to imagine this fantasia of the Victorian architectural imagination erupting in fire as slabs of asbestos collapse into the Thames.

While there is a general sense that something should be done, there is far from a consensus that something must be done now.

The latest report from the “Restoration and Renewal Client Board” proffers two key options ranging in price from £11.1billion to £39.2billion. The less expensive option could see the Commons “decanted” of MPs for up to a decade with the Lords dispatched to some other place for 15 years.

You find yourself thinking: “I’m sure the Chinese could do something faster and cheaper.”

In fact, modern Britain’s history of horrendous cost-overruns on construction projects makes you worry the rebuilding of Parliament will be a fiasco that makes HS2 look like a showcase of efficiency. The cost of restoring the Elizabeth Tower which houses Big Ben was initially forecast to clock in at between £29million and £45million. By 2022 it had hit at least £80million.

MPs and peers will fear that if they leave the Palace they will never get back in. What new arrival wants to forfeit the experience of sitting in either of the iconic chambers? For many of these deeply driven people, winning a seat on the green or red benches is the zenith of their life ambitions.

This dismal debacle is yet another reason why people feel Britain is in decline. Travellers who are dazzled by new airports in Turkey or India arrive in many a British terminal and get the sense that this country has slid into shabbiness. The terminal collapse of our Parliament would be a national scandal and must be avoided, but surely there is a way to rescue it without writing cheques for tens of billions of pounds?

It would seem immoral to funnel such cash into a home for MPs when child and pensioner poverty ravages lives, when the NHS is a bad winter away from meltdown and too many communities are held back by the scandalous state of local transport. The spectacle of spending so much on Westminster would turbocharge Scottish and Welsh independence movements, and regional mayors would suggest it is time to relocate the political capital to the North on a permanent (and cheaper) basis.

This could be the moment when Artificial Intelligence delivers on its promise and comes up with a light-speed model for a restoration plan. There are plenty of venues nearby where parliamentarians could decamp for a year or two – such as Church House, Methodist Central Hall and the QE2 building – while crumbling interiors of no historic value are ripped out and replaced with fittings that can last centuries.

The country should not face a choice between investing a space programme’s budget on fixing up a creaking palace and waiting for it to burn down or get flushed away in an epic plumbing malfunction. Britain can do better and heirs to the spirit of Christopher Wren and Isambard Brunel should invest their energy and genius in delivering a reborn palace of democracy in which we can all take pride and delight.