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?

Are you taking the piss 😅😅🤐

‘… hadn’t of read this’ surely.

I'll of to remember that for next time.

It would seem far more sensible for him and his colleagues to petition for b&b. He could then pay for his lunch. Given he isn’t eating at home the net cost would be evens.

no. it’s reasonable if he wants to save money and make “huge packed lunches” he pays for the food he eats whilst working from home i don’t see any difference

That's why this thread is utterly fascinating to me. We seem to be divided into those who think it's perfectly ok to ask an employee to make do in the same way they might if trying to squeeze a personal trip into a tight budget, and those who think business travel should almost over compensate the traveller for the inconvenience (I fall into the latter group).

Working away in a manual job and business travel in a corporate job are worlds away from each other.

Ffs
Who usually pays for his lunch during the working day?
He does… out of your household budget. His location during the working day doesn’t change his ability to pay for his own lunch.
He’d normally go home in the evening for a meal… he can’t do that when he’s away so it’s THAT he’s compensated for.
Are you hard of thinking, massively entitled… or both?

Yup. A week in Oxford was quite expensive. And 2 nights in Swansea at short notice (course moved from teams to f2f) in the school holidays was quite tricky to find. Had I driven 3hrs at start and end of each day, they would have paid my fuel. I didn't much fancy 6hrs driving around 7hrs training.

Thank you to everyone who has replied - the rude, patronising, bizarre, auto correct word posts weren’t necessary or helpful, but there you go, this is the wacky world of mumsnet 🤷‍♀️
I didn’t ask for help with what to take away to eat, I asked if there is a legal requirement for a company to provide you with meal expenses when working away. To those who seem to think it’s easy or acceptable to take a fridge, crockery, cutlery etc with you, I can only laugh and assume you’ve never worked away from home. To those agreeing the employers are tight/mean, thank you, I’m pleased others understand. I got my answer - confirmation that there is no legal requirement for employers to pay a certain amount for expenses while their employees are away - this is the confirmation I was after, so thank you to those who helped with this.

8s till think it's worth a group of them talking to their management to see if it can be £20 per day, spread across 2 meals if they like, rather than just on one meal.

It used to be that way but it was changed as there were ‘too many receipts to process’ 🙄🤷‍♀️ ridiculous I know 🫨

Please could somebody link to these famous subsistence rates as I cannot find them.

For an employer, travel and subsistence on essential business travel is entirely tax deductible and NOT an employee benefit.
See the manual here
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/national-insurance-manual/nim05685

I have found a link that mentions subsistence rates but it has NOTHING to do with employees .....

I think the rates referred to are HMRC per diem rates which, AFAIK, can be paid tax free to the employee without the requirement for any receipts.

I was fortunate to always have very generous expenses allowances while travelling on business. As a pp has posted, airline allowances while overseas were very generous. Back in the late ‘90s I worked for the (self appointed) world’s favourite airline, in an office based commercial role. I’d visit overseas offices regularly and could claim, without receipts, amounts based on costs in country for breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea (!!) and dinner, as well as an allowance for laundry and a newspaper very day!! As a 20something accountant it was a useful salary top-up!

That's just lazy on their behalf.

I linked to the rates upthread. There are also separate rates that particular industries such as BESA have agreed.

As Tryingtokeepgoing says, the rates are the amount an employer is allowed to pay to an employee without the need to keep receipts.

So his hotel should come with breakfast and he should book one that gives this as part of the rate. He would have to provide his own lunch anyway so if he doesn’t work local this isn’t a big ask. Dinner is a smaller allowance but normal. It also sounds like he isn’t getting dinner per se but a per diem. If his dinner is £15 than £5 for a meal deal.

That's a national insurance manual so not relevant to your point, but I've no idea what benefits or rates people were talking about because employers can pay the actual costs of subsistence providing it's not a part of a trip to a permanent place of work (which doesn't necessarily mean your main place of work, if you have more than one you can't have that either).

The relevant manual for this is EIM31815 and the legislation behind it is ITEPA 2003 s337-339.

@Acc0untant
I linked to the NI manual to prove that there was no Class 1A liability on the employee
or deductibility limit for the employer.

Your manual link
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim31816
also has no limits

No, you typed / pasted the rates up thread.
Please link to the HMRC page that includes them

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim30240

Yup,
That is an entirely optional scheme and the limits are not in any way mandatory.

Employers can set whatever limits they like for essential business travel

Which is what we all said.

in the construction industry, however which it sounds like OP’s husband is, these benchmark rates are very common (because construction workers are crap at handing in receipts & butty vans often don’t give them. . It gives an indication of what is reasonable.

OP’s husbands system is not reasonable.

Yes I know, I was agreeing with you. I understood your original point to be that the employers can pay what they want, and I said they can but the manual you provided isn't the one that shows that.

His hotel does not come with breakfast. His employer books it and will not include breakfast due to the extra cost. He can’t spend £5 lunch then £15 dinner - he is only allowed to submit 1 receipt for evening meal.

@Workingfornothing
Is he PAYE or CIS ?

If PAYE they are well out of order.

THey have put him in a situation of being unable to self provide store cupboard breakfast, so should provide