Select Committee on Administration Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60 - 79)

TUESDAY 29 NOVEMBER 2005

DR CHRIS POND OBE, MS ANNE FOSTER, MR PETER VINES, MR RUSSELL CARTWRIGHT AND MR ANDREW TUGGEY

  Q60  Mr Donohoe: Can I ask whether you think in the modern world that we live in it is justified that there is such a thing as a subsidy?

  Dr Pond: It is justified, yes, because as the Deputy Leader of the House said in the debate in Westminster Hall on 3 November many of the staff who are not over-generously paid have to be here for long and unsocial hours and the need to eat economically and conveniently is there.

  Q61  Mr Donohoe: In terms of passholders, how many guests are staff able to bring in to any of the facilities, if any?

  Dr Pond: I think it is an absolute maximum of three. There are restrictions on what facilities one can use as well, particularly at peak times. You will have to put that question to the management because the rules are quite complex.

  Q62  Mr Donohoe: In terms of usage, you do not have any idea as to how the passholders themselves in your category are using these facilities and on what basis?

  Mr Vines: I do have various reports with the matter in. We are not allowed guests in the Terrace cafeteria. We are allowed guests at certain times in Portcullis House but not between 12.30 and 2.00 pm.

  Q63  Mr Donohoe: Is that on the basis of the busiest periods?

  Mr Vines: Yes.

  Q64  Mr Donohoe: You are restricted during the busiest periods?

  Mr Vines: Yes.

  Q65  Mr Donohoe: Even without that factor, there are occasions when if you go into Portcullis House you are standing in a queue almost 100 yards long. Is it not the case that is a well-used facility in the House?

  Mr Vines: It certainly is, yes. Also, in other periods, we are requested at different times to look after/entertain for a few minutes or whatever guests of Members, people who come to visit Members. We take them downstairs to have a cup of coffee if there is a division, such as there has just been, we sit with them to make sure they are looked after, which may mean a sandwich at lunchtime if the meeting is long. There are Members who take guests who we accompany as well into the general cafeterias.

  Q66  Mr Donohoe: If we make a recommendation to close the facilities that the press have at present, what would be the impact, if any, on the rest of the facilities? Would you be in opposition or in support of that, if that was to be a recommendation?

  Dr Pond: Certainly from the Trade Union Side, we would be in favour of it.

  Q67  Mr Donohoe: You would be in favour?

  Dr Pond: We would be in favour of opening the press facilities.

  Q68  Mr Donohoe: I am not talking about that, I am talking about the idea of closing them completely?

  Dr Pond: Altogether?

  Q69  Mr Donohoe: Yes.

  Dr Pond: The difficulty there would be that it would exacerbate the overcrowding. At the moment we cannot cope with the overcrowding in the cafeterias in the Palace at all. If we have an additional couple of hundred people it would be almost impossible.

  Q70  Mr Donohoe: If the upgrading of the cafeteria in the press gallery goes ahead would you ask that you be allowed access to that as a right?

  Dr Pond: Yes, Chairman, as we did the last time we gave evidence to your predecessor committee.

  Mr Vines: In 2001-02.

  Q71  Mr Donohoe: Would that make a great deal of difference given the facilities that are there are restricted to something like 50 places?

  Mr Vines: It would be an alternative venue to use. It would depend, also, on the quality of food that is served there as well which is the nub of the problem. If you closed it completely, and you have those who normally have designated press passes then using all the facilities in the House of Commons on the cafeteria side, there would be a degree of resentment because there are other outlets they have which are subsidised. They have other places of work, such as   the television base on Millbank—we have mentioned this in the evidence—and they have other places to eat, whereas we do not, from their employers.

  Q72  Mr Donohoe: Am I correct in thinking that as passholders you have the right of access to, say, the cafeteria in the House of Lords?

  Mr Vines: Yes.

  Q73  Mr Donohoe: That is something else you have as a facility?

  Dr Pond: We do but the quid pro quo is that the House of Lords' staff have access to our cafeterias. I think probably the traffic is greater in that direction than in ours going into the Lords' facilities which are very small.

  Mr Vines: It is a question, also, of planning in a sense. I think most of us have lunch for 35 to 40 minutes. It is a good five minute walk, and if you are in Norman Shaw North it is a 10 minute walk, to the far end which is why members of staff do not go to 7 Millbank and use the facilities there, it is too far to go out of your time which you have for lunch. That is why everything north of Bridge Street, which is where most of the offices are, is most heavily used certainly by members of staff and by others as well.

  Dr Pond: Quite a proportion of the Commons' staff are rostered to take lunch at a particular time in order to maintain service. We do not have the option, unfortunately, of going at 11.30 or 2 o'clock or whenever the facilities are less crowded. I do not entirely agree with the SAAC that quality is the nub of the matter. I think overcrowding is probably the very nub of the matter.

  Q74  Mr Gerrard: There are a couple of things mentioned in the submission of the Trade Union Side which are relevant to overcrowding. First of all, facilities in Norman Shaw buildings, there are vending machines but nothing else. Secondly, use in Bellamy's of what used to be the coffee lounge. Would you comment on those?

  Ms Foster: We have had comments from Members that the Members' Clubroom would be a great place for people to go and have coffee after eating in Bellamy's and the cafeteria, and that would reduce the overcrowding that you have at lunchtimes.

  Q75  Mr Gerrard: How much underused is it from your observations? Does it get any use?

  Mr Vines: It gets a little use.

  Dr Pond: I would answer that either with the adjectives "substantially" or "grossly" but I am not sure which is appropriate. It is certainly under used.

  Q76  Mr Gerrard: What about Norman Shaw, what would you need in there to attract people to stay in there rather than going to Bellamy's or to Portcullis?

  Mr Vines: I do not think you will be able to do that because there is a certain element of isolation, to be honest, in the Norman Shaw buildings. People do like to come over to meet at lunchtime, maybe for a short time but they do get out and meet, which has been the great attraction of the atrium in Portcullis House. It has been a great draw. If there were some sandwich facilities over there, that might relieve some of the pressure. I do not suppose you have enough money or space to put in a full dining area. Can I come back to the question you raised about the club room? At lunchtime today I did meet with some Members specifically there to discuss the submissions going in today for this meeting. Certainly we looked into the clubroom and saw about three people there and we noted there were four or five Members of Parliament eating with us in Bellamy's itself. We do feel an alternative use could be found we would hope to relieve the pressure that is in Bellamy's. It could be for coffee or ready made sandwiches plus coffee but in some way which would improve the flow of people out of Bellamy's cafeteria once they have eaten.

  Dr Pond: I can say that over the years we checked the number of people eating in the clubroom and very often it is in single figures at lunchtime. Management will give you the most up-to-date information but it is under used.

  Q77  Mr Gerrard: Mr Tuggey, you talked about some issues with regard to quality, what about access and booking facilities, is that a problem? How much are you reliant on individual Members?

  Mr Tuggey: We can book our own facilities. We do not have a problem, generally. One of the areas, which perhaps I should have mentioned earlier, is the Terrace restaurant that is open after the Whitsun break is a great boom to us. It is extremely flexible. If we have people who are vegetarian, there is lots of choice and there is no great time constraint because you can get up and eat and move around. In terms of entertaining it is very useful. The only problem is it is open for such a short time. It would be very useful, as far as we are concerned, if it was open from the week after the Easter break. It would make life much more flexible for us. We have certain events that go on during the year and that would be much more useful. We do not have any trouble booking though.

  Q78  Mr Jones: You say you have no problem booking, how often in a year would you book a dining room for an event? Is there a set period?

  Mr Tuggey: Yes, we have set periods. There is a two-week period in March, normally from 6-17 March, that sort of period, and then another one normally in May. Those are the standard two-week periods. Recently we have introduced a week in January as well, the last week in January, where we organise a party politics seminar. Next year, depending when the State Opening is, there will be a week in November when we book the facilities. A total of six weeks a year when we are booking facilities in the dining rooms.

  Q79  Mr Jones: Can I come on to the issue about how food quality is perceived. I share all your concerns about the Churchill Room having attended a dinner there the other night which had a set menu. A great fuss was caused when I asked for the main course without any sauce on it which seemed to then take another 15 minutes to produce. What is your general view, first of all, of the quality of the food and, secondly, how it is perceived in terms of what you get when you visit other Commonwealth Parliaments? I am sure you do not want to put llama on the menu which we ate or curried rat which we had in Guyana. What do other parliaments provide which is different from us?

  Mr Tuggey: By and large the quality that we receive here compared with other parliaments throughout the Commonwealth is pretty good, having been to many of them now. That does not necessarily mean that it is as good as it should be.


 
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