Scottish Parliament suspended after attack at Westminster

The Scottish Parliament has been suspended following reports of an attack outside the House of Commons.

With reports emerging of an incident at Westminster, the Scottish Parliament followed the Commons in suspending business.

A police officer was stabbed at the UK Houses of Parliament, with the assailant then shot by armed police.

There are also reports of a car driving into pedestrians on Westminster bridge.

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The incident led Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh to suspend the Scottish Parliament’s debate on whether to call for an independence referendum.

Macintosh told MSPs: “Members will be aware, and members of the public too will probably be aware from social media and other news reports that they are following on their phones, that there has been a serious incident at Westminster, and Westminster itself has been locked down because of security concerns.

"There is no reason, and certainly no wish, to cause undue alarm here – and security has been increased here – but I am also aware, and business managers and I have discussed this, that the fact that our sister parliament had a serious incident is affecting this particular debate and it is affecting the contribution of members.

"So it is for that reason we are deciding to suspend the sitting. We will find time to resume this debate…and we will be able do so in a full and frank manner, but I think to continue at the moment would not allow members to make their contributions in the manner that they would wish to."

Holyrood's sister site Politics Home's editor Kevin Schofield was at the Commons at the time.

He said: “We just heard a very loud bang outside the office here in the press gallery in parliament here and looked out the window there was lots of shouting, men running around then I looked to my left and there was a part of someone rushed through [the gates], attacked a policeman the policemen went down.”

"Another policeman came to his rescue then the man who had assaulted him got up, he appeared to be carrying after a knife or a gun… and then we heard gunfire - lots of gunfire - maybe five or six rounds and then it got really quite panicky after that, as you can imagine."

The deputy speaker of the House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle, suspended Parliament following the incident.