Food items purchased (2023)

Response

Please provide the cost of purchasing the following items in the following locations in Parliament: the Despatch Box (for hot drinks only), Debate, Bellamy’s, and Terrace (for food only) for the following months: March 2023, March 2022, March 2021, March 2020, March 2019. If for any of these months there are multiple price points, please provide each
• Small Americano (Despatch Box only)
• Small cup of tea (Despatch Box only)
• Small hot chocolate (Despatch Box only)
• Fish and chips
• Shepherds pie/cottage pie
• Jacket potato with one filling
• Bacon sandwich

Some information is held by the House of Commons regarding your request. Where these items have been sold in these outlets in the time periods specified, costs of these will be held and the information we hold is provided

• Where a cell is marked as “n/a”, this is because the item specified was not sold in this outlet during one or more time period, and we therefore hold no costs regarding it.
• We have interpreted “Jacket potato with one filling” to mean a Jacket potato with cheese in this instance, as prices vary by filling chosen.
• Price decreases between March 2021 and March 2022 occurred as a result of changes to VAT.
• Price changes occurred either due to VAT, annual price increases and/or due to our outlets changing from copper to silver rounding

Additionally, 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, on our website.