Food safety (2021)
Request
For all the canteens or cafes or restaurants, or other food serving locations in the House of Commons, I would like to be given all food Food Safety inspection reports/results, details of subsequent enforcement actions taken, and all supporting documents.
I would be interested in documents relating to all inspections going back for the last 10 years. If that is not possible, then I would be happy with the last five years.
Could you please also cover all food-serving locations in other buildings that are part of the parliamentary estate eg Portcullis House, the palace of westminster, Canon Row, the Commons library, etc.
Response
Please also note that our response only deals with catering venues on the parliamentary estate for which the House of Commons is responsible (we do not have any other premises elsewhere in the UK). Some catering venues on the parliamentary estate are the responsibility of the House of Lords, which is a separate public authority for the purposes of the EIRs. You may therefore wish to consider forwarding your request to the House of Lords.
Some information is held by the House of Commons in relation to your request.
We hold a food safety inspection report for The Table, which is one of our cafeterias. We also hold ratings certificates for the following:
• The House of Commons, covering the catering venues in the Palace of Westminster
• Portcullis House, covering catering venues in this building
• Portcullis Cafeteria
• The Table
Some personal data, including the name, phone number and email address of a member of staff of the House of Commons and the phone number and email address of a member of staff of Westminster City Council, have been redacted from the requested information. This is because this information is exempt in accordance with Regulation 13 of the EIRs, as disclosure of this information to the public generally, in the our view, would not be consistent with the data protection principles in Article 5 of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). This is an absolute exemption and the public interest test does not apply.
Any information relating to your request for previous years has been disposed of in accordance with our records disposal policy. We only hold food safety inspection reports for one year after an inspection has taken place, as long as no enforcement actions are required. For some catering venues, the latest inspection was conducted in 2020 and as such the accompanying reports have been disposed of. It may also help you to know that in the last 10 years there have not been any enforcement orders relating to any catering venues operated by the House of Commons. Our records disposal policy is available on our parliamentary pages.