THE House of Commons spent more than £1.4 million on alcohol to sell in the Palace of Westminster bars, restaurants and shops in 2012 and 2013, official figures have shown.
Parliamentary authorities bought nearly 50,000 bottles of House of Commons sauvignon, more than 26,000 of House merlot and more than 33,000 pints of guest ale over the two-year period. In addition more than 8,500 bottles of champagne were purchased, alongside over 2,100 bottles of Speaker John Bercow's whisky.
It means spending in Commons bars has increased in recent years from just over £222,000 in April 2011 to more than £249,000 in the year to April 2013. This may reflect rising prices.
The figures were revealed in a Freedom of Information request by the Times, which parliamentary authorities published online.
The figures may lead to questions over Parliament's supposed drinking culture, which was laid bare in the trial of Tory MP Nigel Evans, who was cleared of sex offences. The Commons booze culture also hit the headlines when Eric Joyce was forced to resign the Labour whip in 2012 after fighting Tory MPs in a Commons bar.
Most of the alcohol is likely to have been drunk by the 650 MPs, 760 peers, and thousands of staff and parliamentary workers.
A Commons spokeswoman said an increase in commercial events would have accounted for a rise in demand for alcohol. "It is not possible to disaggregate sales or consumption by user," she said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article