Houses of Parliament catering hit by hospitality staff shortages

Restaurants in the Houses of Parliament have had to temporarily reduce their opening hours due to staff shortages.

The challenge to recruit hospitality workers has impacted the catering service, which operates 15 venues including bars, restaurants, and banqueting rooms across the wider parliamentary estate.

Sir Charles Walker, Conservative MP for Broxbourne and chair of the House of Commons administration committee, told Times Radio: “There are issues about staff recruitment in the catering department. We’re short of chefs … by about 38, I think, at the last count, so there’s less we can do.”

The Caterer understands this figure applied to the total number of vacancies across the catering services team at the Houses of Parliament.

A House of Commons spokesperson said: “Our catering venues serve thousands of customers every week, including visitors, MPs and journalists – as well as the staff who keep parliament running through irregular hours. During recess and other lower-demand periods, we often reduce opening hours in certain venues or re-direct resources where needed.

“Some of our catering venues have temporarily operated with reduced hours or services due to staff shortages – an issue that is seen frequently across the wider hospitality and catering sector.

“However, the House’s staffing situation has improved in recent months, helped in part by an ongoing recruitment campaign and the effective redistribution of resources where required.”

The House of Commons Catering Service operates across all five buildings in the parliamentary estate.

These include the Members’ Dining Room, the Adjournment and Bellamy’s and are available to the 650 elected Members of Parliament, 14,500 other pass-holders, and non-pass holding visitors, amounting to roughly 1.5m guests each year.

There were 132,000 job vacancies in the hospitality industry between February and April this year, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Hospitality trade bodies have repeatedly called on the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to add chefs to the shortage occupation list to make it easier for businesses to recruit from abroad.

However, the MAC said in March it had not seen “substantial evidence” that hospitality job roles could not be filled by UK workers.

*Image: Rickie Chan / Shutterstock *