Drink sales / Bar tabs (2021)

Response

In the first instance please note that the House of Commons and the House of Lords are two separate public authorities for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Therefore, while both Houses of Parliament offer catering services on the parliamentary estate, this response only covers those services offered by the House of Commons. For information about catering services offered by the House of Lords, you may wish to contact them directly.

1) A full list of alcohol purchased since December 1, 2020 broken down by venue if possible

This information is held by the House of Commons.

List of alcohol sold by House of Commons catering venues between 1 December 2020 and the date of your request.

Please note the following in relation to the data:
- All sales were made during the period between 1 December and 15 December. During this period, alcohol could be purchased and consumed with a meal in restaurants on the parliamentary estate, or purchased as part of our retail offer where unopened bottles could be taken away from the venues and the estate.
- For the whole period, all bars on the parliamentary estate operated by the House of Commons were closed.

It may interest you to know that over 15,000 people can access the parliamentary estate and use its services, of which only 650 are MPs. The on-site catering venues are also used by staff of the House of Commons Administration and contractors, such as facilities staff, security staff and building contractors, as well as Members’ staff, Peers and their staff and Members of the Press Gallery. Products sold in these venues are always charged at more than they cost and everybody pays the same price. Further details of our price lists, access arrangements, sample menus and other helpful information about the catering service is proactively published by our in-house catering team, in the interests of transparency, which can be found on our website.

2) Any bar tabs/catering debts opened or paid by members since December 1, 2020

This information is held by the House of Commons.

Members of Parliament may set up a personal account with the House of Commons to which they may charge certain costs such as drinks and meals in some Commons restaurants. Such an account provides for the House Service to make automatic deductions of any balances owing at the monthly statement date using their preferred payment card. This is known as the monthly charging scheme.

Firstly, the House holds information about the number of monthly charging scheme accounts opened. In the period between 1 December 2020 and the date of your request, no new accounts were opened.

Secondly, the House holds information about sums paid back by Members of Parliament on their existing monthly charging scheme accounts. However, the House considers this information to be the personal data of that Member and that any processing of that information, including disclosure, must therefore be fair, lawful and transparent, in accordance with the first data protection principle in the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Having considered this issue, the House has decided that disclosure of individual payments or indebtedness would be likely to breach this principle where Members are operating within the letter and the spirit of the monthly charging scheme. However, we have concluded that this changes at the end of the 90-day period following on from the recording of the debt. It has been decided, therefore, that the disclosure of information should be limited where a sum is owed for more than 90 days. We have concluded that disclosure of information about money owing for less than the 90 day period, while held, would constitute a breach of the data protection principles and is therefore exempt information by virtue of the exemption set out in Section 40(2) and Section 40(3) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). This is an absolute exemption and the public interest test does not apply.

Owing to the considerable public interest in debts to these accounts, and to reduce the cost burden to the taxpayer to answer requests of this kind, information about Member’s debts over 90 days is proactively published on our website on a quarterly basis. The information covering the period between 1 and 31 December 2020 has already been published. This information is therefore exempt from disclosure in accordance with section 21(1) and (2)(a) FOIA, which removes a public authority from the obligation to provide access to information which is already in the public domain. This is an absolute exemption and the public interest test does not apply.

However, it may help you to know that information relevant to your request on Members debts can be found on the Transparency pages of our website.

The information on Member’s debts over 90 days, covering 1 January to the date of your request, is intended for future publication by the end of April 2021 and is therefore exempt under section 22 FOIA. Section 22 is a qualified exemption, and accordingly we have to consider whether the public interest is in withholding the information or in disclosing it. The arguments for and against disclosure are detailed below.
The general argument in favour of releasing information is that there is a public interest in being able to scrutinise aspects of the House of Commons where that information might be easy to access and will not prejudice the House. The argument against disclosure is the public interest in permitting public authorities to publish information in a manner and form and at a time of their own choosing. It is a part of the effective conduct of public affairs that the general publication of information is a conveniently planned and managed activity within the reasonable control of public authorities. Where the decision has been made in principle to publish, there is a reasonable entitlement to make arrangements to do so. On this occasion, the public interest in withholding the information outweighs the public interest in disclosing it.