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?

I agree that the amount is low.

But, he's getting his dinner paid for in full (and could be pretty chunky for £20 depending where he decides to eat).

Breakfast and lunch surely wouldn't cost him more than a full days worth of food at home, surely? Those meals could easily be bought from the supermarket just as they would be at home. Loaf of bread, tub of philly, jar of jam, pack of bagels and a bunch of bananas would feed him breakfast/lunch for a week! About a fiver or so all in for a whole week! Maybe a bit more if he wants to buy a multipack of crisps and multipack of choc bars to add to it. Plus take his refillable water bottle and flask for tea and fill them up in the hotel each morning.

The company books the hotel, dp has no say in it. They don’t book b&b as that’s more expensive 😡🤷‍♀️

I assume you've read his entire expense policy? The amounts we can claim are on the final page of our policy. I don't know what any legal requirement is though.

How does he claim the expenses back? We have an online system, but the options to claim aren't very clear.

EG: Dinner comes under 'Evening meal'
Whereas lunch comes under 'Subsistence' and based on how many hours we are away from home.

We also have separate 'underground' and 'train' but no DLR option!

We can claim £22.50 for dinner. Hotels are always booked to include breakfast and lunch we claim under subsistence- depending how long we are away from home. Could he check with HR?

We get £20 for dinner and I find it's plenty wherever we go. There are always chain restaurants around that aren't too expensive, I might get a takeaway or I'll buy something from the supermarket to prepare myself if I'm staying somewhere with cooking facilities.

We do get £10 for breakfast however (that always covers it nicely) but no lunch. The argument is that we could technically take a packed lunch which I think is a bit unrealistic when travelling. I usually grab myself a meal deal.

Accommodation is usually Travelodge or Premier Inn, so no fridge, but there is a kettle. His colleagues are all of the same opinion, it’s far too low. Some have very young families and really struggle when working away. Some of left for this very reason.

He’s a heavy manual worker so needs good feeding 😂 When he’s working local, he has breakfast at home, takes a large packed lunch, flask and water/juice, then has evening meal at home. So his lunch at home is not the same cost as when working away. Sorry but I had to laugh at most hotels have minibars etc .. he gets put up in Travelodge or similar, so no such luxury as a minibar or fridge. When away, he takes cereal bars, porridge cartons, crisps, nuts etc.

Would he not be buying that anyway himself ??
Or some sort of lunch at least.
Thats what the vast majority of people do....work doesnt usually pay for lunch.

We’d be very happy with this set up, it’s much better than our current situation.

We can’t claim for breakfast or lunch the first day as we have to have it at/bring it from home as per usual. I get £15 for an evening meal which is plenty for a decent meal, there are tons of good (varied, healthy) takeaway options. My breakfast for subsequent days is included at the hotel, £5 for lunch (I usually get a sandwich for less than this) and then £15 for dinner again.

My DP works in the demolition industry and often works away. Luckily they stay in AIRBNBS or houses booked on Booking.com so he can take some good with him.

His current job pays £25 a day. His old job paid £40 which was a massive bonus as he saved most of it.

Obviously hotels are trickier.

That's terrible not even providing a breakfast.

Yes, I totally understand, we used to struggle because of expenses when my kids were young too. DH often had to stay away overnight at very short notice so when they had happened they had to arrange a hotel themselves (there were certain ones they were allowed to use, I think), pay with their own credit card for that and all their daily expenses and then claim it back monthly. And then half the time the manager wouldn't get the expense claim signed off by the deadline and then they might even go off on annual leave so sometimes by the time the credit card bill needed to be paid he still hadn't been reimbursed the expenses. It used to make me 😡.

Oh and I meant to say, we didn't even used to get meal deals, we took packed lunch from home to save money. Something you can't do if you're in a hotel and there is no fridge and nowhere to clean up after prepping it.

Is everyone really getting a meal deal when they're at work every day. That can work out quite expensive when you're on a strict family food budget.

The HMRC guide is for what the company can claim back, there’s no actual law to state they need to pay employees anything unfortunately.
They get their expenses re paid weekly, some workers with young families are still struggling though. There’s no way the company will issue business cards, especially as they’re only allowed £20 per day.

@Workingfornothing has he checked the companies policies around allowances? When were they last updated/ reviewed? Has anyone raised it with management? If it is a partial issue as to why anyone’s leaving the company ,then it’s in the companies interests to listen to its workers.

When he’s working away he takes as much with him as he can - cereal bars, porridge pots, crisps, nuts etc. plus big bottles of water and refills them at the hotel. It’s just annoying having to scrimp carefully just so you can work away when you’re told to. I’m just a firm believer that it shouldn’t cost anyone to work away for their job when they have no choice whether they go or not. If they don’t, they’re out of a job 🤷‍♀️

He can, but it’s money we’d rather not spend, and believe he shouldn’t have to. There is no fridge at the hotels. He takes as much food as he can, but can’t take enough to sustain a heavy manual worker.

There is no legal requirement.

HMRC do set a scale rate. This is the amount employers are allowed to give tax free without a need to keep receipts. The scale rate amount depends on how many hours you are away from home & whether this is a regular occurrence.

£5 breakfast (working before 6am or overnight stay)
£5 - 1 meal (working away from home 5 hours)
£10 - 2 meals (working away from home 10 hours)
£15 - late evening (working after 8pm)

max 3 meals per day so maximum £25.

Yip our place said that most people bought lunch out so it would be unfair to give them lunch expenses

He’s usually not getting dinner paid for in full. He often works in London - very few places you can get a decent dinner for less than £20! He has no fridge, the hotels do not have a fridge. He takes what dried food he can but it’s not enough to sustain a heavy manual worker. My point is that it’s not fair to expect employees to have to pay for themselves to work away, as when they work at home it doesn’t cost as much. They have no choice about working away, if you refuse, you’re out of a job. 🤷‍♀️

We’d be more than happy with £20 for dinner if breakfast was included in his hotel, but it’s not. There’s no fridge or cooking facilities either. He’s a heavy manual worker so it’s not like snacks for breakfast and lunch are suffice for him.

£20 seems really tight to me. That would cover a main course for dinner and a soft drink from a carefully chosen restaurant in most places and that's it.

It's all very well saying buy bits to make breakfast and lunch but in a hotel room it's not easy to do things like butter bread, let alone make a sandwich? And are people meant to carry butter about with them? Even if there's a mini bar for milk, how could you make and eat cereal? Eating at home is always cheaper. They should at least cover a fiver for a breakfast roll and coffee, and similar for a supermarket sandwich for lunch.

Whatever I want within reason. I can expense lunch if I’m out of the office, any coffees I get while driving, dinner and drinks (basically don’t go crazy) and breakfast you can choose if to add on to the hotel booking or get something else.

And while he’s working away he could surely also have breakfast in the hotel room with supermarket stuff, take a large packed lunch and a flask / juice.

Some places work on the basis that they only reimburse things that are additional costs over and above the general living costs. So working from home base would mean providing own breakfast and lunch.

Our lads tend to find a butty van for breakfast, Tesco type meal deal for lunch & local pub/Spoons or Premier Inn meal deal for tea.