Why do MPs get subsidised food?

[IShotTheDeputyItWasMe]

Ok, if they are travelling, they should not be out of pocket. Like many workers, they should be able to claim reasonable expenses depending how long they are away on work trips etc.

However, I've never known any pubpic sector workplace put alcohol on expenses as standard. I've also never known any workplace to pay for their workers lunches when they are in their normal place of work.

Some companies may run a subsidised canteen but that will come put of the company profits, not the public purse.

Basically, why do we pay to subsidise food and then pay again to cover unreasonable food costs?

Exactly this. Nobody says that a manager in an office should pay their PA out of their own salary, and yet they balk at MPs getting an allowance for constituency staff.

The issue is it is not a particularly attractive career now for talented 40 and 50 somethings from modest backgrounds (the type of people you need to be MPs and Ministers). You can earn as much or more and get better Ts&Cs in moderately senior public and private sector jobs.

You can see it the amount of politicans these days who seem to peak early and leave for other careers, meaning there is a lack of cooler, more experienced heads. You don't want politics to be dominated only by the very old and wealthy and the very inexperienced and idealisitic - look at America.

Having been involved in local politics I see many ambitious young people who want to be MPs so I don't think it's really correct to say that the role doesn't attract candidates. I'm afraid a lot of those I've come across are motivated by ambition, power for its own sake & by ego.

I've lived in a couple of different Constituencies and have met & worked with a few MPs from different parties. One of them accepted cash for questions, another in a different Constituency was embroiled in a "house switching" expenses scandal so didn't stand again at a General Election and my current MP seems to spend a lot of time concerned about matters in another country rather than in their Constituency in a city that is falling apart at the seams. In fact they are known locally as the Hon Member for xyz country.

It's just been increased to 94 thousand the things you could do with so much money lucky them

Again, £94k is literally senior manager level in a lot of private sector companies and you'd expect a bonus on top plus the ability to claim expenses. This is not an attractive job package for a lot of the people you want to attract.

But it's not for people working for the public purse.

Which is what MPs are doing.

The vast majority of staff in parliament don't work for MPs- they serve the House (much like civil servants although the terms and conditions are different and civil servants serve His Majesty's Govt, while the principle of House staff is that they are removed from politics and 100% impartial).

Why would MPs order in Uber Eats for thousands of people who don't work for them - that's insane? There are staff in the House all night and they need to eat. It doesn't shut down when the last sitting finishes. If you go in first thing the police are getting breakfast as they come off their night shift.

Most Whitehall departments have a canteen which is subsidised by dint of them not having to pay for premises. Mains are about a fiver so cheaper than the weirdly very limited options in the area but not exactly free. Parliament is the same. Really the number of MPs eating there every day is tiny compared to the staff. Likewise the bars!

Doctors, some headteachers, top tier managers in NHS Trusts and Councils, relatively senior civil servants, judges, top police officers. They are all paid more and are all paid from the public purse.

They are also not subject to the whims of voters, most of whom have no idea of their personal achievements / efforts and judge them on the performance of their party leaders or whatever their social media feeds tell them.

MPs are a minority of the people who work in the Palace of Westminster. There are researchers, secretaries, archivists, cleaners, doorkeepers, police, clerks etc etc. Do they not deserve a work canteen either? Many of them are paid a lot less than MPs.

There are nowhere near as many as you think particularly on the Labour side. For most of them being a MP is their highest paid job so far. There are of course exceptions but many are simply low level
employees elsewhere who moved into politics.

Salaries are roughly equivalent to SCS1 in the civil service which seems about right to me. There can be quite high costs associated with being an MP- if you've got kids for example you either need another parent to be available 24/7 or a nanny because of late sittings, trips, weekend work etc. If we want e.g. lone parents to do it they have to be able to cover costs. It's not tiny violins- of course it's a good salary- but there are some very unique parts of the job, not least the need to spend both time in your constituency and in London every week.

Doctors, some headteachers, top tier managers in NHS Trusts and Councils, relatively senior civil servants, judges, top police officers. They are all paid more and are all paid from the public purse.

Average pay for a HT in UK is £63K. Not far off a third less than an MP's salary. Remember that isn't a salary available to a teacher (equivalent of an MP) it is the Head teacher - more like equivalent of the cabinet, not the 640 odd MPs that represent the whole of the UK.
Same with Police Officers. You are fooling yourself if you think £91K is available to 'senior managers'.

MPs can't moan about inequality and then claim they need to be paid as much as senior business leaders.

Not where I work or anywhere else in Scotland afaik!

@OonaStubbs senior business leaders are not paid £91k a year. That's mid level management.

Well, I was giving examples of other ‘public purse’ jobs. All of my examples are valid.

I said some headteachers. Large secondary schools mainly.

Almost all top tier public sector management posts are paid more than an MP. This is a fact. Look it up. Happy for you to correct me with evidence.

And of course MPs are unique in that it you don’t think they’re worth it you can vote to replace them with someone you think would be better.

I work at a university and we have some non profit making food options but it's mainly staffed by tenant businesses. I suspect the rent is fairly cheap - and Costa charge the same as elsewhere.
Over the summer lots of outlets shut but at least the mini supermarket can't, but the students who are there all year - some overseas students over Christmas and Easter when everything is shut - I do feel for them.

We have no local options at all and we do have some high paid staff as well as some on minimum wage. I don't begrudge the canteen staff a cheap meal and I imagine the VC is getting in his chauffered car to entertain guests at a country pub. I've certainly never seen him in the "SCR" aka mildly posh lunch venue.

And they keep taking expenses away from other people.

I did permeant supply teaching and used to be able to claim expenses. Now I can see the argument that if I was working close to home I didn't need expenses.

But I did some work where I was over 100 miles away from home so practically I had to stay over.

Once they changed the rules I could not do that. I was offered a huge daily rate by a college that was about 90 miles away but a hotel would have taken up more than the extra amount.

So who benefitted from removing the expenses? It limited where I could work. It left a college with a gap in staff and the students with a non specialist teacher.

Hospitals have bars too for workers- cheap prices for staff, same thing

It's a long time since I worked for the NHS but the only bar I experienced was actually a social club, paid for out of our wages.

Yet somehow that kind of thinking is not applied to the rest of the public sector. In the NHS trained staff have to pay for their training in order to work in shit conditions lacking in basic equipment. The fact that we had to import people from abroad - where they pay less for training, or nothing - doesn’t bother these uniquely privileged public servants in Parliament.

No I don’t want the country run by people we have to import from abroad, but there has to be some kind of parity. MPs really live in a very different world, so how can they represent the rest of us? It’s becoming hereditary for other, cultural reasons anyway, if you’ve ever read Caroline Lucas’s writings.

I agree entirely about the increasingly shit conditions that public sector staff work in. But I don’t think MPs can be blamed for it without considering why they make the decisions they do.

Can you imagine the fuss if any of the cuts to staff ‘perks’ like training fees were reversed? The right wing media would be all over it, finding the one example in a million of someone taking the piss, and finding some awful private sector sweatshop and demanding that nurses be treated just as terribly because it’s taxpayer’s money. And the voters believe it.

We, as a public, are often as much to blame. We buy the papers, watch GB News, have our minds polluted on X but don’t delete the app, vote for parties not individuals, prioritise cost over value, and are the first to moan when taxes go up and when service quality goes down.

Oh indeed, I would also change the thinking on public sector pay and conditions as well. The whole "paid more than the Prime Minister" discourse around senior public sector leaders is so dumb it hurts my head.

Lots of work places used to offer subsidised food via canteens. Most hospitals still offer a lower price for staff. Lots of people get free food regularly for staff morale such as pizza or donuts being delivered to the office. My local County Council has a staff canteen which has a reduced price for staff. Not cheap but cheaper than prices for visitors.

I don't agree with MPs subsidised canteens but it's not as unusual as you seem to think.

So now we find out about an MP claiming £900 a year expenses for her Cockapoo.

This 100%

I've also never known any workplace to pay for their workers lunches when they are in their normal place of work.

Plenty of companies provide lunch.
At my place there’s an array of free snacks, fruit and treats throughout the week, fridge stocked with drinks etc.
The office next door has a chef make lunch every day and the whole office sit down to eat together.