Parliamentary Estate: Power Failures

(asked on 5th December 2023) - View Source

Question

To ask the hon. Member for Broxbourne, representing the House of Commons Commission, how many power cuts have been recorded on the Parliamentary estate in each of the last five years; and where on the estate they occurred.


Answered by
Charles Walker Portrait
Charles Walker
This question was answered on 12th December 2023

For the purposes of this answer, we are interpreting power cuts to mean loss of power.

Our records on power losses on the Estate date from 2019, since when 52 incidents have been recorded. The losses range in scale from loss of power to sockets in an individual room to temporary loss of power to a floor in a building.

These incidents have been recorded in buildings across the Estate; 17 in the Palace of Westminster and 35 spread across the other buildings on the Estate.

The records do not include (a) the loss of power to some buildings the Northern Estate due to flooding in 2021 and (b) planned maintenance or construction work that requires shutdown of power. Planned power shutdowns are scheduled for out of business hours, including nights and weekends.

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