Parliamentary authorities are considering sitting with just 100 MPs and a skeleton staff in a bid to avert coronavirus spread, MailOnline understands.
Senior sources insisted the Commons would not be closing despite health minister Nadine Dorries testing positive.
‘We need to keep the House open,’ one said.
There are fears the signal that would be sent to the country would fuel panic and lead to economic chaos.
However, other measures such as shutting Parliament to visitors and continuing with a skeleton staff are being examined for future sittings.
One idea said to be ‘gaining traction’ is that the parties could agree to have just 100 MPs working in the Commons – sending the other 550 home to work.
Cabinet ministers have suggested it would be madness for MPs to continue to meet during a major outbreak (Commons pictured last week)
Health minister Nadine Dorries fell ill on Friday and was diagnosed with coronavirus on Tuesday evening
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle is keen to make sure that staff and politicians on the estate are not put at risk
Political parties would need to do an informal deal, and split the numbers along the lines of the result of the last election.
They would also have to commit to passing only essential legislation.
‘That would probably work,’ a senior MP said. ‘Anyone who broke it would get hammered by the public.’
There is a quorum rule in the Commons that 40 MPs, including the Speaker, must be present to pass laws.
It emerged last night that Nadine Dorries has become the first MP diagnosed with the disease.
Ms Dorries has revealed she has put herself into isolation, just days after attending a reception at No10 with the PM.
The Tory MP gave a speech in the Commons on Wednesday night, was in the tea rooms with other politicians, and held a surgery on Saturday for 50 of her constituents. She is believed to have started feeling ill on Thursday, before deteriorating the following day.
Tests confirmed last night that the 62-year-old had the virus and she is now said to be recovering – although she voiced fears for her 84-year-old mother, who is living at her home and ‘began coughing’ yesterday.
Officials are tracing everyone she has been in contact with since contracting the virus. However, Downing Street has refused to say whether the PM will be tested. As of yesterday morning, he had not been.
Mr Johnson attended a Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey with the Queen on Monday.
A Tory MP told MailOnline today: ‘I was sat in the tea rooms with Nadine on Wednesday. You think, if she puts her hands on the table and then I put my hands on the table…
‘Then she was in Parliament giving a speech at the despatch box. Everyone needs to be tested, Boris needs to be tested. Jo Churchill was next to her in the chamber.’
The backbencher added: ‘Boris cannot help himself. He shakes hands with everyone. He is obviously trying to stop himself now.’
Another MP, Labour’s Rachel Maskell, today declared that she is self-isolating after having a meeting with Mrs Dorries on Thursday.
Preparations for the crucial Budget this afternoon appear to be going ahead despite the dramatic developments, with senior Parliamentary sources still adamant that the estate must be kept open.
Last week Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg insisted there are ‘no plans’ to shut down Parliament during a coronavirus outbreak.
The intervention came after a backlash at the idea, which has been discussed at high-level meetings. It is understood some Lords are strongly opposed, as peers can only claim the tax-free £313 daily allowance when the House is sitting.
Parliamentary officials also feared such a move could trigger a chain reaction in offices across the UK – effectively paralysing the country.
Cabinet ministers have suggested it would be madness for MPs to continue to meet during a major outbreak, describing them as potential ‘virus super-spreaders’ as they travelled to and from their constituencies.
Thousands of staff, officials and reporters work on the Parliamentary estate alongside politicians.
Concerns have been raised about the signal that would be sent by closing the doors at the Palace of Westminster
There are particular concerns about how the virus could affect members of the House of Lords, who have an average age of 70.
More than a hundred peers are over 80 years old. The disease has been found to be more dangerous for older people.
Appearing before the Health Select Committee last week, Chief Medical Office Chris Whitty said: ‘I don’t see, personally, any reason why the House of Commons and House of Lords are a more dangerous environment for people to move in than other ones, so other environments where people come into contact with other people.’
He continued: ‘One of the bits of advice that we will give when this starts to run is for people who are older or who have pre-existing health conditions to have some degree of isolation from more public environments.’
At Prime Minister’s Questions last week, the SNP’s Carol Monaghan raised fears that MPs could bring the infection back to Parliament from their constituencies.
She said: ‘Every week 650 of us come here from every part of the UK, spend several days operating in close proximity and meeting people from all over the world, and we then return to our constituencies, potentially becoming the very vectors that we are trying to shut down.’
In response, Boris Johnson said: ‘The chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser, together with the Health Secretary, will be saying a little bit more in the next couple of days about what we are going to do to delay the advance of coronavirus – in Parliament and in other large gatherings.’