As we are all in it together, efforts have been made to cut this subsidy.
It appears that a major component of the costs is staffing, and so their lordships want to cut the cost of that staffing. However, instead of reducing the number of staff and doing a little more for themselves, they propose to reduce the overtime payments made to staff, who are paid only £8.55 per hour.
It occurs to me that if you only earn £8.55 per hour in London, with the cost of housing being so high, there is a likelihood that you will be entitled to in-work benefits.
So in order that their noblenesses, who include some of the richest people in the country, don't loose out on cheap food and booze, people who earn only just above the UK minimum wage, living and working in one of the most expensive cities in the world, will be poorer and obliged to depend more on benefits.
Good thinking.
As an afterthought having read about Eric Joyce's latest drunken punch up in a House of Commons subsidised bar, where there was a karaoke evening going on, isn't it high time that there was no booze served in Westminster.
It is a place of work, not a karaoke venue.
