Animal rights protesters have been arrested after scaling the environment department’s head office in London.

The Metropolitan Police said two women and a man have been held on suspicion of criminal damage and causing a public nuisance.

Police were called to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) building in Marsham Street, Westminster, just before 6.30am on Thursday.

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Protesters were scaling the outside of the building attached to ropes as they unfurled a banner calling for a ban on animal agriculture.

They also released yellow smoke flares as police and paramedics waited for the protesters to come back to the ground – while one activist munched on a banana.

A police cordon was put in place on the road and the building, which also houses the Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, was closed.

The Animal Justice Project, which campaigns for an end to animal farming, said its members had carried out the protest to highlight the “catastrophic” impact of bird flu being spread through chicken sheds.

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