British MPs are set to leave Parliament due to renovations

London - British MPs today approved the plan to renovate the historic Parliament building. They are thus willing to leave Parliament for several years, the AP agency reported. The plan still needs to be approved by the House of Lords after the House of Commons.

According to AP, the 19th-century building is crumbling, leaking, infested with small pests, and contaminated with asbestos. After years of hesitation, MPs today opened the way for an extensive multi-year renovation. It will cost billions of pounds, but experts say that not carrying it out would mean disaster.

"This debate probably should have taken place about 40 years ago," said Andrea Leadsom, who coordinates government affairs in the House of Commons on behalf of the cabinet. She added that the building urgently needs repairs.

Lawmakers voted in favor of urging parliamentary members and staff to vacate the building no later than around 2025. The repairs are expected to take six years and cost around £3.5 billion (over a trillion crowns).

"It might be exaggerated to say that Parliament is a life-threatening place," noted Conservative MP Damian Green. "But it's not wildly exaggerated," he added.

Experts have recently been issuing increasingly urgent warnings about the state of the neo-Gothic building, which is one of London's most famous symbols and is also on the UNESCO World Heritage List. With their vote today, MPs also supported a report from 2016, which was commissioned by Parliament. The assessment stated that the building is at risk of flooding or fire, which would make it uninhabitable.