To think MPs shouldn’t be drinking while at work?

[greywildoceans]

There’s a big debate going on after new Green MP Hannah Smith has come out and said that you can smell the alcohol on MPs after lunchtime.

https://x.com/politicsjoe_uk/status/2048323140804100487?s=46

Of course all the usual lot are coming out saying it’s a British tradition to drink at work and she’s being “anti British”. I’ve worked in the public sector and the private sector and I have never encountered anyone who thought it was appropriate to drink while working. I’m confident that if anyone did, they’d be fired.

AIBU to say MPs should be banned from drinking while working?

You haven’t provided the evidence or the numbers.

icgs-annual-report-2024-25.pdf

Read the report yourself
I work for an organisation which a much higher number of staff and we would consider ourselves to have a serious issue if we were getting that many complaints relating to bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct.

Yup, great fun working in media during the 90s, but surely not a thing anymore - particularly in the public sector. It needs to stop in HoP.

As I've said, it's still very much a thing in the public sector. And it's fine.

I’m in the public sector and it definitely is not.

So forgive me if I don’t read every page in detail - I assumed that if you are quoting figures you could point out specifically where they came from.

From that report I see "Between April 2023 and March 2025, alcohol was a factor in almost one out of every five complaints investigated"

So I assume from that they are talking about the 42 complaints investigated yes? So in the two year period they believe alcohol was a factor in 2-3 of them. And that is complaints investigated, not complaints upheld, with alcohol “believed” to be “a” factor. It also doesn’t distinguish between complaints about MPs and staff. We have no idea if that 2-3 complaints were MPs.

This is not data which justifies a general ban on MPs having alcohol in a social setting which doubles as the work building.

I also work for a much larger organisation and I proposed all staff should be banned from alcohol when working out of town or late nights I’d be rightly laughed at. If I tried to ban staff from having a drink with colleagues after work I’d be rightly laughed at.

You are also completely ignoring the fact that for MPs and other staff at security risk the House isn’t just a workplace, its also a safe place for them to socialise and meet up with friends and colleagues.

So to answer my question back to you - will you be campaigning to ban teachers and other professionals from having a beer or glass of wine with dinner if they are then going to answer emails, mark work, prep for the next day at home?

No, not particularly. I'm more interested in environmental protection and preventing the wholesale destruction of ecosystems through the use of pesticides, not whether a random MP has smelly breath, whether through wine or garlic.

I work across both public and private sector and a drink after work with colleagues or a lunchtime drink on Friday in many places.

Its certainly true that the widespread heavy drinking culture in both private and public sectors back in the 80s/90s has thankfully disappeared but an afterwork or Friday lunchtime drink with colleagues is still very common.

It's unacceptable. I also strongly believe they shouldn't get a subsidised bar - subsidised by the taxpayer.

Sorry 2-3 of was meant to be 2-3 of those taken to full investigation, probably double that of investigations started.

I’m not campaigning for anything. This is just a discussion - I’m not trying to ban anything. I’ve simply said that I don’t think it’s appropriate to drink alcohol while at work.

You are free to disagree with me, as are others.

Im not suggesting a ban on socialising with colleagues or drinking alcohol with colleagues. My opinion is that there should be some boundaries and that drinking while working is not appropriate in the vast majority of situations. Again, feel free to disagree.

I don’t think it really matter who made the complaints discussed in that report. It says there were 50 complaints which resulted in 69 cases being opened because some involved people. Of those 69, 44 were taken forward and 50% were upheld. The report was clear that alcohol contributed to claims regarding bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct. It doesn’t paint a positive picture of the culture does it?
Im not saying that means alcohol should be banned but if it were my organisation I’d be looking at reviewing the situation to ensure all staff felt safe at work.

As for your question about teachers etc (im a university academic so similar) obviously I can’t stop people drinking at home and then working BUT I don’t expect staff to work in the evenings anyway and there would be issues if drinking was impacting the work they were doing. And drinking AT work would be a disciplinary issue.

Oil and Gas industry quite a few firings after Xmas dos particularly with free bars.

A drink after work is a different thing all together and you know it.

i do not know a single person who goes for a drink on Friday lunch and then returns to work. I can just imagine what would happen if my NHS colleagues went for lunchtime drinks and the media got wind of it!

I can understand that it would be frowned on in the NHS, and I guess a blanket ban is easier than saying medics can’t have a glass of wine with their lunch, but admin people can.

You not knowing anyone in the NHS that does it doesn’t say anything about the culture more widely across the board. It’s one employer, and the roles aren’t really comparable or analogous to those in Parliament, so it’s not relevant.

Ah, got it - so it’s just we have to jump through hoops to justify it for the MPs.

I've worked my whole career in the reinsurance industry and the culture in London has changed.

When I started in 2006 taking long lunches was very common practice and part of the job. Nowadays the broker I work for wouldn't tolerate it unless there was a very good reason and I didn't return to my desk to continue working afterwards.

The industry has become a lot more complex / analytical / legal / regulated and the major Lloyd's Syndicates for example have clamped down on drinking.

Leadenhall Market remains busy so it is still a common practice for some companies, but the days of getting an underwriter drunk so they would agree to sign something are long gone in my experience.

Of course MPs shouldn't be drinking on the job. Most of us would be sacked immediately if we did that. That it is subsided by the tax payer is even more outrageous.
While we're on the subject of Parliament as a workplace, the jeering, interrupting, baying type of debate is a disgrace and needs to be brought into the modern world. It's no longer a playroom for privileged, private school oiks behaving like badly brought up children.
I used to wonder about starting a campaign of primary school teachers taking their classes to the public gallery to witness our "finest minds" in action. Shame the buggers into it.
It's another world and it really shouldn't be. They are our representatives. Hannah Smith is an ordinary person from an ordinary background. She wasn't forming policy, just voicing a natural reaction to the outrageous, hypocritical behaviour of those representatives most of us don't get to witness first hand.

Eh? What hoops are you being required to jump through here?

Drinks after work= fine.
Drinks at lunch if you finish work at lunchtime= fine.
Drinking whilst you’re making decisions as part of your job= not fine.
Providing a subsidised bar paid for by the taxpayer=not fine.

Is CH3CH2OH better than caffeine I wonder?

A former colleague of mine was interviewed in the pub. I started work at a Uni in 1997 and a lunchtime drink at the Uni bar or a nearby pub was the norm at least once a week. HoC bar is open 24 hours I think

I work in banking, it’s still very normal if you’re taking clients out to lunch to offer wine, it would be considered very rude not to actually. Nobody gets drunk, and if I have other meetings to attend in the afternoon I don’t drink. But if I’m going back to the office to work on spreadsheets I might join my client in a glass.

But the MPs aren’t taking clients out for lunch and closing deals

I wouldn't get the sack for having one drink with lunch where I work.

Absolutely not!

It would be frowned upon if doing it a lot or to a point where it impacted job performance

you obviously don’t know many people then, it’s quite normal for “office” workers to have a pint on their lunch

are MPs useless? yes in the main

are the green party the answer? absolutely not, not many MPs live in the real world anyway but Green party MPs certainly don’t

the root cause of our problems isn’t MPs having a pint on their lunch break though.