Lawmakers warn leaky, crumbling UK Parliament at risk of ‘catastrophic’ event

By JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — British lawmakers are warning that the country’s Parliament building is at “real and rising” risk of destruction. The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said Parliament is “leaking, dropping masonry and at constant risk of fire,” as well as riddled with asbestos. The committee said Wednesday that “there is a real and rising risk that a catastrophic event will destroy” the building before long-delayed restoration work is done. Lawmakers voted in 2018 to move out of the building to allow several years of major repairs. That decision has been queried ever since by lawmakers who don’t want to leave, and last year the body set up to oversee the project was scrapped.