MPs and Lords wasted 2.6 million subsidised meals last year as food poverty surges

Food poverty campaigners have criticised MPs, peers and their staff for throwing away vast quantities of food while families struggle to eat.

Some 2.6 million meals worth of food waste was thrown away in parliament last year, according to figures released by Commons authorities under freedom of information requests.

It comes as charity The Food Foundation says that 7.3 million households have been cutting back on or skipping meals since the start of this year – an increase of 57 per cent.

Parliament operates 17 bars and eateries, most of which make significant financial losses – totalling £6.6m in the first year of the pandemic alone.

Between 2018 and 2021 the canteens effectively received a subsidy of £17m, with patronage falling while large number of staff worked from home.

Last year parliamentary authorities recorded 148,230kg of food waste, a figure which was down from 152,688kg in 2020, and 258,869kg in 2019, according to the FOI request first reported by the Sunday Mirror.

Writing for the newspaper food poverty campaigner Jack Monroe said the waste  “shows contempt for ordinary people”.

The drop between 2019 and 2020 coincides with MPs' staff not coming into the premises the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, and restrictions on visitors.

Lib Dem shadow Commons leader Wera Hobhouse said the food waste findings were "outrageous and astonishing that in a cost-of-living crisis, Parliament is the cause of so much food waste".

"Officials have a duty to reduce waste and, where possible, donate surplus food to local communities," she said.

FareShare, which distributes food to frontline charities, said: “The equivalent of 1.3 billion meals of good-to-eat food is wasted annually in the UK.

“We welcome organisations to get in touch with FareShare, to help us get more nutritious surplus food to those who need it most.”

A Commons spokesperson said: “The House of Commons and House of Lords catering services take a number of measures to reduce the amount of food waste from our outlets and produce less food waste than the national average for the catering industry.

“The Sustainable Restaurant Association has rated parliament’s catering services as good practice organisations and were awarded three stars out of three as part of the environmental section in their Food Made Good scheme.”

They added: “Parliament provides a range of catering services to members, house staff, journalists and a large number of visitors. As a workplace this includes staff canteens that are available for people who work in parliament. The services aren’t directly subsidised, but they unavoidably come at a cost due to the irregular hours that parliament works. The service has a commitment to continuously seek to reduce costs where possible.”