By Denis Sheehan MIH, Publisher, H&C News: Parliament catering wasted 2.6 million meals in 2021.
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A staggering 2.6 million meals worth of food was squandered in parliament last year, uneaten and wastefully disposed of according to figures released by Commons authorities under freedom of information requests.
The news of such vast waste comes at the same time that food charity The Food Foundation reports 7.3 million households have been cutting back on or skipping meals since the start of this year.
The parliament estate runs 17 eateries and bars, all are subsidised and all make substantial losses, in the first year of the pandemic the combined losses totalled £6.6 million. Between 2018 and 2021 the canteens across parliament received subsidies of circa £17 million.
The problem was first reported by the Sunday Mirror, and in recent weeks many others have followed the story.
As the cost of living crisis deepens such waste is not only environmentally careless it demonstrates that £17 million could be far better spent on people that ‘need‘ help.
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