Rejected petition: Remove alcohol subsidies and implement drug & alcohol testing in parliament.
Rejected on
The government should remove the subsidies on alcoholic beverages consumed in parliament buildings.
There should also be random breathalysers and drug tests carried out on all parliamentary workers and a record of these made public, failing a drug test should result in a police investigation.
It is scandalous that elected public servants are allowed to have alcoholic drinks subsidised by the tax payer.
They are responsible for making decisions on behalf of thousands of their constituents and many have to represent us on the world stage, this should be done without the influence of alcohol or drugs.
11/12 bathrooms were found to have traces of cocaine in them in 2021, any other workplace would do random drug tests, why should our elected officials get away with breaking the law?
Why was this petition rejected?
It’s not clear what the petition is asking the UK Government or Parliament to do.
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.
You may wish to sign this petition:
Ban the sale and consumption of alcohol in House of Commons venues
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/768417We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.