Stop taxpayer funded subsidised parliamentary food for MPs and Peers.

Subsidising meals in parliament for MPs and Peers costs the UK taxpayer up to £7 million a year for each. Despite huge food price inflation, we are paying for MPs and Peers to indulge on cheap fine dining. It’s time for the government to remove taxpayer funded subsidies on parliamentary food.

Catering services for the House of Commons are provided by an in-house team who do not provide a subsidised service in the commercial sense of the word. Some venues make a profit, referred to as contribution because it contributes to reducing overall costs. 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 contribution or cost of each venue is calculated by subtracting the food and operational costs from the catering sales. Rather than a subsidy, the House monitors the contribution or cost of each catering venue, which include cafeterias, dining rooms, restaurants and bars. Prices of food and drink are regularly benchmarked against appropriate external comparators.

You can read more about this here: https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/freedom-of-information/information-we-already-publish/house-of-commons-publication-scheme/catering-services/house-of-commons-cost-of-catering/

We can't accept petitions about catering in the House of Lords as that is the responsibility of the House of Lords.