Rejected petition Privatise and outsource ALL Westminster bars and restaurants and stop subsidies

Rejected on 17 June 2022

All subsidies must STOP in all Westminster bars and restaurants, most ordinary working people don't receive such benefits so why should MPs and the like?

Full privatisation of Westminster bars and restaurants

Why was this petition rejected?

It’s not clear what the petition is asking the UK Government or Parliament to do.

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: https://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.

We could accept a petition calling for the use of private providers rather than the House of Commons catering service, if that's what you'd like to see happen.

We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.