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End subsidised food and alcohol in Parliament and the Lords for all MPs

Submitted on Saturday 24th October 2020

Rejected on Friday 30th October 2020

Current status: Rejected

Rejection code: duplicate (see below for details)

Petition Action

End subsidised food and alcohol in Parliament and the Lords for all MPs

Petition Details

322 taxpayer funded MPs, earning £77k-150k per year, are quite happy to enjoy subsidised meals in parliament while voting to stop free school meals for the poorest children in the country. This has to stop with immediate effect. The public purse should be used to feed those who need it most.

Additional Information

In the middle of a pandemic, 322 MPs have voted against extending free school meals into the holidays for the poorest children in the UK. It is unclear why they should benefit from free or subsidised meals out of public funds themselves. Since the pandemic, MPs are set to receive another generous pay increase, whilst millions face job losses, poverty and hardship. According to latest figures, taxpayers fund up to £57k a week to subsidise food and drink for politicians across both houses.


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This petition was rejected

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 petition, which you might like to sign:

Increase food and drink prices for MPs in House of Commons catering venues: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/555565

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.

Catering and expenses in the House of Lords is a matter for that House, not the Government or House of Commons.

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