Submitted on Friday 23rd October 2020
Rejected on Friday 30th October 2020
Current status: Rejected
Rejection code: duplicate (see below for details)
Remove taxpayer subsidy for Members of the Houses of Parliament Food and Drink.
Remove the taxpayer subsidies on food and drink sold to members of the Houses of Parliament, using the budget saved to fund schemes that support children below the poverty line. Food and drink prices are subsidised by the UK taxpayer, but Members can afford normal;y priced food without handouts.
While members benefit from lower priced food and drink in the houses of commons, many children in the UK are going hungry, and millions are falling below the poverty line. Members should not be getting handouts from taxpayers when children are going hungry. In this crisis we cannot afford to spend money on food for Members if we cannot afford to spend money on the Free School Meal Scheme over the half-term.
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The Government e-Petitions Team gave the following reason:
There's already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.
You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.
We have published the following petitions, which you might like to sign:
Increase food and drink prices for MPs in House of Commons catering venues: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/555565
Fund free school meals over school holidays until April 2021: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/555727
Provide the free school meal entitlement throughout the year: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/555723
End child food poverty – no child should be going hungry: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/554276
The House of Commons Catering service does not provide a subsidised service in the commercial sense of the word. Some venues make a profit, while in other venues the cost of providing the service does exceed the income received in sales due to the irregular hours and unpredictability of parliamentary business. The House of Commons publishes details of the cost of House of Commons catering services: www.parliament.uk/site-information/foi/transparency-publications/hoc-transparency-publications/catering-services/transparency-reporting-catering-services/
Customers of the House of Commons Catering Services include some of the 650 MPs but also around 14,500 other pass-holders, many of whom are staff on lower wages that work irregular hours. In addition, members of the public and non pass holding visitors to Parliament also have access to these services. The irregular hours and the unpredictability of Parliamentary business contribute to increasing the net cost of providing a catering service. To offset this many of the restaurants, dining room facilities and their staff, are used to cater for private events at times when they are not required by the House. This is one of a number of measures used to reduce costs.
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