§ 56. Sir W. Smithersasked the hon. Member for West Walthamstow, as Chairman of the Kitchen Committee, what steps have been or are being taken to put the Refreshment Department on a paying basis.
§ Mr. McEnteeThe Committee has increased its cash turnover from under £30,000 in 1944 to over £100,000 in 1947. It opened some of the dining and refreshment rooms during the Parliamentary Recesses for the sale of food and drinks, for a limited time each day, and this new service returns a profit. It has increased prices to a level comparable to those charged by firms outside which run on a commercial basis. It has effected every reasonable economy in operating the department.
I would again emphasise the fact that no loss is incurred by the department during the period when it is trading. I would like also to refer the hon. Member to my answer to the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Amory) on 30th July last, 40 and to the answer given by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to the hon. Member for West Walthamstow on 5th November, 1948.
§ Sir W. SmithersCan the hon. Gentleman say why the taxpayer should have added to the burdens already imposed on him by a Socialist Government that of subsidising the food of hon. Members?
§ Mr. McEnteeThe taxpayer pays nothing for the meals of either Members of Parliament or anyone else supplied by the Kitchen Committee. The loss is entirely due to the action of this House in determining that the conditions of the staff should be made better than they were in pre-war days, and that tips, which used to be given by Members and others, should be abolished. But for these costs, which, I imagine, were over £20,000, we are not losing but making a profit.
§ Mrs. NicholCan my hon. Friend tell the House whether this is the first year in which the Kitchen Committee has incurred a loss?
§ Mr. McEnteeNo, the Kitchen Committee has almost invariably incurred a loss. This is the first loss incurred during this Parliament, but I have in my hand a copy of a letter addressed by the Chairman of the Kitchen Committee in 1936 to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in which he asked him to take over the full responsibility of paying the staff and providing the equipment or, failing that, providing an annual subvention of £5,000 a year. He points out in that letter that, during the previous eight years, a loss was incurred by the Committee in seven years out of the eight.
§ Mr. GammansThe hon. Gentleman admits there is a loss, but would he explain who makes good that loss if it is not the taxpayer?
§ Mr. McEnteeThe people who always pay. The Kitchen Committee has on very many occasions received subventions from the Treasury, and there is no difference this year as against any other year.
§ Mr. John E. HaireIs it not a fact that the Kitchen Committee is an all-party committee, and that therefore responsibility rests upon the whole House and not upon any section of the House?
§ Mr. McEnteeI should like hon. Members to understand that the committee is an all-party committee of this House, having 17 members.