Work subsidised canteens

25Avalon Do you think it is acceptable for MPs to drink at their place of work?

Esspee

25Avalon Do you think it is acceptable for MPs to drink at their place of work?

Not sure Esspee. I don’t think it acceptable to go down the pub on a Friday lunchtime and down several alcoholic drinks before returning to ‘work’. I can’t however see much harm with one glass of wine with your meal which is a choice you get at most restaurants. Everything in moderation. I can see you are thinking if the drinks are cheaper than anywhere else then won’t they be tempted to have more than one or even two.

Also don’t forget there is a corkage charge on wines at restaurants so a bottle costs twice as much. Obviously no corkage charge at Westminster.

Alcohol isnt necessary during a working day.

At work I could go to the greasy spoon for lunch or nip to a local shop for a sandwich.
I could certainly live off that menu but I forget how poorly they are paid!
A lovely lunch, a snooze afterwards in a comfortable seat and then watch a bit of porn to wake the MP up-a good day at work methinks.

If I ate a 3 course lunch with a few alcoholic drinks I wouldn't have been fit to do my job well afterwards.

AGAA if I had a few alcoholic drinks I would have been sacked!

How on earth can any of them have any understanding as to what people mean when they talk about the rising food prices, and the difficulties that involves. These people are all receiving in salary alone, nearly £84,000 pa plus approx. another twenty grand in all sorts of expenses. And they have this highly subsidised restaurant. So they are so very far away from the person on the average salary of £32,000 a year and having to pay ALL their own expenses, work related or anything else.

Let alone any understanding of those who receive a lot less even than that amount - Teaching Assistants (for example).

Thanks Oakdryad for explaining. So the taxpayer is definitely subsidising alcohol while they work as they can never reclaim alcohol as expenses.

The waffle about taxpayers nit being a subsidy but it runs at a loss. Why isn't the canteen privatised then like they would other services?

Why aren't they charging market prices? My local pub (not in London) charges £14.95 for beer battered fish with chips, peas and tartare sauce. £17.95 for an 8oz rump steak with the same sides as the members' menu. Similar dishes are half price.

It puts my small sandwich, banana and coffee work lunch in its place. Paid for by me.

The tax payer is not subsidising alchohol and probably not food either. It is being charged at a non-profit rate. Westminster is not unique in doing this. However, when MP’s ask for a pay rise this ‘perk’ should be taken into account. Living like a Lord takes on a whole new meaning!

I thought it was sold at a loss?

Not from the prices I looked at. It’s still a huge discount and perk. And it looks like a nice menu.

Catering services at the Houses of Parliament run at a loss so they are effectively subsidised by the taxpayer. In 2020/21, the cost was £9.1 million, mainly due to reduced sales because of Covid-19 lockdowns.

The "losses" over the last ten years has been £43 million. I posted about this upthread.

fullfact.org/online/parliament-food-subsidised/

In a rather odd reply to an FOI request about catering the response from UK Parliament said:

The contribution or cost ... is calculated by subtracting the food and operational costs from the catering sales.

Most businesses would call that a loss.

They also said:

It is also important to make clear that the customers who use the on-site catering venues include approximately 14,500 pass-holders (such as House staff, civil servants, contractors, Peers, members of the Press Gallery, MPs’ and Peers’ staff, etc.) as well as some of the 650 elected Members of Parliament.

That doesn't explain why these people are not charged commercial prices.

They also said:

Prices of food and drink are regularly benchmarked against appropriate external comparators. but does not say who or what the comparators are.

www.parliament.uk/site-information/foi/foi-and-eir/commons-foi-disclosures/catering-services-retail/catering-subsidy-2018/

Time for a concerted effort to get the bars closed in their place of work, the restaurants to have their subsidy removed and their expenses cut so that they have to contend with the same prices as we taxpayers who are currently subsidising their lavish lifestyles.