The order comes as MPs face being evicted for five years while the buildings undergo a £3billion makeover.

The Grade One-listed building requires extensive repair work amid warnings it is suffering from chronic subsidence, electrical problems, fire risks, plumbing leaks, rats and is full of asbestos. The worst problems are linked to subsidence, caused by decades of Tube trains rattling past its foundations, that has caused Big Ben to tilt 18ins off the vertical.

A 2012 study showed that unless significant restoration work is undertaken, major, irreversible damage may be done. On Thursday MPs will be presented with the options for the repair work. One would relocate MPs to a replica chamber.

The Queen Elizabeth II conference centre, opposite Parliament, has been suggested as an alternative, although the Speaker John Bercow has said locations outside London should be considered. Other options will include a more limited programme of continuing repairs and “replacement of the fabric systems of the Palace” over an indefinite time scale and a phased scheme of more substantial repairs, which could involve parts of the building being closed for a defined period of time.

A range of scenarios will be presented to MPs when the Independent Options Appraisal for the Palace of Westminster Restoration and Renewal Programme is published. Mr Cruickshank, who presented the TV programme One Foot In The Past, said that a decision should not come down to cost.

He said: “What is clear is that a building of such huge architectural, historic and symbolic importance must be saved and given new life and a safe and secure future no matter what the cost. There can and should be no alternative.

“And what an extraordinary message it would send if Parliament, the ultimate guardian of the nation’s wealth of listed historic buildings, was unwilling or unable to look after its own magnificent and majestic Grade One-listed Palace.”