Why you shouldn’t be angry about the House of Lords spending £90,000 on champagne...

For full transparency, I should be clear in stating that I love champagne – nothing is quite as magical and versatile to drink. But reports of the House of Lords spending nearly £90,000 last year on a luxury few can afford left me with a very sour taste in my mouth.

According to a recent freedom of information request, 1,589 bottles of champagne were purchased at a cost of £88,987.90 in 2023, the highest number in five years. The figure wasn’t much smaller in 2019, when 1,441 bottles were purchased, but the cost was significantly less at £69,988.80 – like everything else, the cost of champagne has rocketed.

The debate about the lords’ love of bubbly has been going on for more than 10 years now, when it first emerged that they refused to have their catering budgets merged with the House of Commons over fears that “the quality of champagne would not be as good if they chose a joint service”.

We were near the start of austerity at that point, and things certainly haven’t got any better. We are living through a cost of living crisis, in what feels like a crumbling country (quite literally, in the case of many of our schools and hospitals).

So, yes – on the face of it, news that a number of peers splashed nearly £100,000 on bottles of bubbly most commonly reserved for celebration is shocking. But, wait. There are a few important caveats to the drop-mic headlines.

Most of the champagne sold by the House of Lords, the report states, is bought by visitors in the gift shop and consumed away from parliament by members of the public – or sold at banqueting events to organisations or individuals “hosting events in the House of Lords”.

The report confirms: “It is not paid for by the taxpayer.”

OK, so we didn’t pay for it from the public purse. This is welcome news – but does it justify such largesse at a time when food bank use is sky high, and charities have warned of a “pandemic of poverty” engulfing the UK?

When you look at the House of Lords’ gift shop and it describes the champagne as being a “perfect accompaniment to cucumber sandwiches”, you can’t help but feel that they are utterly disconnected from the rest of us. I don’t know about you, but the only person I know who eats cucumber sandwiches is my two-year-old.

Ostentatious? Certainly. Out of touch? Absolutely. Yet beyond these very reasonable concerns and condemnation, there is a far more worrying story about alcohol – and it’s not related to our unelected lords of the realm, but to our entirely elected government and what they consumed during lockdown using our money.

Ministers are currently being asked why a request for a report on the government’s consumption of wine and spirits during the pandemic has been postponed four times. In this epic example of can-kicking, we can only be left wondering just how many corks were popped at their parties when the rest of us were dutifully obeying the rules.

The Foreign Office holds the stock inventory for the government’s wine collection, and it was supposed to be published at the beginning of 2023. This repeated delay would have the cynical (and not so cynical) now believing that it will be delayed even further, and therefore likely never published if a general election is called in the first half of this year – as it will be exempt due to purdah.

The story of the House of Lords appears to be a perfect distraction from the real story of ongoing contempt for the electorate.

And why the obsession with champagne? Yes, I know I love it but, I also have a real passion for English sparkling wine – I can’t help but wonder why the Lords are so fixated on an import. Hasn’t anyone told them that we produce outstanding and internationally respected sparkling wine here at home?

In my opinion, they should immediately switch out all champagne in favour of our homegrown goodness – and act as a showcase for our domestic talent. There’s one thing I’m certain of, they’re not serving bottles of English sparkling wine at the National Assembly in Paris...

Rosamund Hall (DipWSET) is a wine merchant and consultant