Meal allowance when working away

[Workingfornothing]

Can anyone please advise. I’ve looked but can’t make much sense. Is there a legal requirement for a company to provide you with meal expenses when working away? Currently my partner sometimes works away and sometimes works local. When he’s local he has breakfast at home, takes a packed lunch, and a hot drink in a flask and water/juice, then obviously has evening meal at home. When he works away his employer pays for his hotel, and £20 for an evening meal. That’s it. If the evening meal is under £20 he gets that amount back only. If it’s over £20 he only gets £20. Every time he works away he’s using his own money as he has to buy his meals and drinks (excluding £20) So it’s costing him, and other employees, to do their job. I just can’t see how this is fair. So, is there any legislation to say meals must be provided by the employer?

No there isn’t. HMRC cap allowances too. Surely if he were at home he would pay for food/drink anyway so the £20 compensates the difference for eating out. He could always only eat a main and take fruit/yoghurt for dessert.

No there isn’t any requirement. What your partner has is pretty standard, although the allowance is low.

In my last role we got allowances of £27 for dinner, £10 for breakfast if not provided by hotel and £7 for lunch (only the actual cost was reimbursed).

in my current role we get £30 for dinner, £10 for breakfast if hotel doesn’t include it, nothing for meals during the day.

No. If he’s at home he has his evening meal at home with our family obviously. When away he can’t take fruit and yogurt anywhere 😵‍💫 Do you also mean he should only eat one meal a day when away? No breakfast, no lunch?

That subsistence amount feels low and only covers one meal which if you’re away surely would include a breakfast and lunch
is breakfast not included with a hotel stay?

He literally gets £20 for dinner. No breakfast, no lunch. Just a paltry £20 for dinner. He sometimes works in London so £20 is a drop in the ocean, unless he were to eat at Mcdonals, KFC and the likes 🤔

No, they don’t include breakfast at the hotels.

It just feels very very unfair that he is expected to spend his own money to sustain himself just to do his job in a place the employer says he must go.

What LIZS means is that he'd be buying food and drink to eat at home, your normal food shop. So the £20 is to go towards the additional cost of food.
It's rubbish but it is also pretty standard.

Our staff are expected to pay for their own breakfast and lunch, and get dinner in their hotel. Usually there is a meal deal included (Premier Inn's is £19 for meal and one drink).

For breakfast, most people get a takeaway coffee and a croissant, and a sandwich meal deal for lunch, the same as they would at home. Or I guess they could have the coffee in the hotel room and take a cereal bar & fruit with them. It's hardly difficult to organise.

Maybe, but his portion of food doesn’t cost £20 per meal, that’s for sure. 😂 I’m genuinely shocked that this is seen as standard. If he works local, it doesn’t cost him to do his job, but if he works away, it’s costing him to do his job 😵‍💫 Why is anyone expected to work half a day/a day for free?

I didn’t say anything about organisation 🤷‍♀️ A croissant is not going to sustain a manual worker for very long either. My point is the cost issue but clearly you’re missing that.

Ours is 30 per day, which is rubbish, but could be spread over more than one meal.

These allowances seem really low. Ours is generous at £120 dinner, £75 lunch and £35 breakfast. But I still get a Boots meal deal most of the time!

That sounds great compared to our situation. He gets £20 allowance and it can only be spent on 1 meal. He can’t even spend £5 on breakfast and £15 on evening meal. It is 1 meal, 1 receipt.

These allowances seem really low. Ours is generous at £120 dinner, £75 lunch and £35 breakfast. But I still get a Boots meal deal most of the time!

I’m astounded! That’s extremely generous! All we’d like is enough for a bacon butty and coffee, sandwich deal for lunch then a decent evening meal.

When Dh works away he is allowed to book B&B and has a £25 meal allowance, I don't know why your Dh isn't. Allowed to book B&B

Does the accommodation include a fridge, kettle microwave?

I'm in an office job, not a manual one, witb a corporate. We'd be able to claim for B (if not included), L and dinner. Used to be max allowance for each meal (dinner was £20) but now it's one bigger allowance or the whole day's meals. £20 for the lot sounds measley. What do his colleagues think?

I'm not ignoring the cost issue. If he's working in the office, he would have breakfast at home, maybe buy a sandwich, crisps & a drink for lunch and then have supper at home.

When travelling, most hotel rooms have minibars to keep stuff cool, and coffee & tea in the room, the lunch is the same cost as at home, and supper is covered. So really the only difference is what he eats for breakfast.

I used to take mine with me and store it in the minibar. . Cereal bars, croissants, fruit, yoghurt.

What would your dp normally eat for breakfast?

With my previous employer it was $100 a day for any expenses. Breakfast was always covered in the hotel, so this was just for lunch, dinner, drinks, snacks etc.

My current employer gives £25 a day. Again, breakfast is already paid for, so this is for whatever you choose for meals. For a meal deal at lunchtime and a modest dinner in the evening, it's enough. I always eat more when I'm away than I do at home to get best value 😄

The HMRC maximum per diem rate is £25 for trips over 24 hours so he could query the £20 allowance with the employer. But £25 is the maximum so the employer can set their own travel and subsistence rates to lower than that. Anything over £25 should be taxable.

Paying himself and reclaiming via expenses is fairly normal procedure. Guess it depends how often his company process and pay expense claims - some only do it monthly via payroll, others do weekly or fortnight payment runs. Some companies give regular travellers a prepaid expenses card or business credit card so if he is travelling regularly and racking up lots of expenses, having to wait to get them reimbursed, he should speak to his employer about a card to charge his business travel expenses to.

That’s crazy. They should be putting them up in a hotel including breakfast

Ours is much higher (£125 a day but if it goes over, no one really bats an eye it just gets reimbursed), but I’ve worked in places where the allowance was £15 😬 It’s just the way it is. Good tips I’ve seen are those porridge pots you get for £1 in the supermarket (filled with water from the hotel room, most have kettles), granola bars, fruit like apples/bananas, or grab a meal deal for £3.75. He can make up the flask in the hotel room - and take water from home to last him as well. Those squeezy squashes are useful if he doesn’t want to just drink water. It’s not ideal but he just has to live with it and find ways of making it cheaper, or spend his own money or switch companies to one with a more generous allowance

Exactly this. Why can he not get fruit, roll etc from a Tesco express or similar, or take it with him from home to hotel to make lunch(most have a fridge).

Yes, that it too proscriptive