THE HOUSE OF Commons has been suspended as a result of a water leak in the building.
Deputy Speaker Lindsay Hoyle made the decision to temporarily stop proceedings during a backbench business debate.
The debate was interrupted by the sound of leaking water.
The House of Commons press office said the leak was “urgently dealt with and has now been isolated”.
“The House of Commons maintenance team is currently assessing the damage,” it said.
A number of MPs began tweeting about the leak, with Labour’s Justin Madders writing: “In the Commons chamber and can hear rain dripping in through the roof, Parliament really is broken.”
Tory MP Neil O’Brien tweeted that the water was coming into the chamber from above.
“Leak alert! A lot of water is flowing into the chamber of the Commons from above. Think it is coming in from the press gallery appropriately,” O’Brien wrote.
Meanwhile, fellow Conservative MP Julia Lopez tweeted that there was a “very noisy torrent of water coming in from the ceiling”.
“Is this a Biblical flood coming to wash us all away?” she said.
The House of Commons press office also confirmed that this was not a sewage leak.
This incident comes after a group of protesters entered the public gallery in the House of Commons in Westminster on Monday evening and stripped semi-naked while MPs debate a series of motions on where Brexit goes next.
The group – calling themselves Extinction Rebellion – said they were doing so to draw attention to climate and ecological issues, and promised further action in the coming weeks.
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