Restaurants and bars in the Scottish Parliament are being massively subsidised by the taxpayer with the figures, published by the Scottish Parliament, showing a subsidy of £680,147 for the nine months to December 2020, which is 17 times more financial support than the average Scottish pub received during the pandemic.
The Scottish Hospitality Group have revealed that between April and December 2020 – a total subsidy of £680,147 was received by the Parliament’s own catering arm compared to the estimated average support of £40,000 for privately-owned pubs, restaurants and hotels across Scotland. This taxpayer-funded subsidy was an increase of £274,399 on the same period last year, and suggests that the Parliament’s hospitality arm received more than £30,000 a month of additional support during the pandemic bringing its monthly subsidy to £75,000.
The situation is in stark contrast to the help available for those operators providing jobs and generating incomes.
Stephen Montgomery spokesperson for the Scottish Hospitality Group comments, “It’s revealing that politicians do understand after all how much help struggling hospitality operations need. But the level of taxpayers’ money given to their own facilities is genuinely unbelievable compared to the amount we’ve had to beg for over many months and it all leaves us with an extremely bad taste in the mouth.
“Candidates for Holyrood would do well to reflect on their positions about this issue as they face the electorate, especially those whose jobs and livelihoods depend on a thriving hospitality sector.”
The figures are revealed in these documents published by the Scottish Parliament:
Quarter 1 (April, May, June) = £229,000; https://www.parliament.scot/FMResources/Catering/Quarter_1__2020-21_76KB.pdf
Quarter 2 (July, August, September) = £230,000; https://www.parliament.scot/FMResources/Catering/Quarter_2_2020-2021_34KB.pdf
Quarter 3 (October, November, December) = £221,000; https://beta.parliament.scot/-/media/files/spcb/spcb-papers/spcb-papers-2021/18022021/chief-executives-report–february.pdf (page 14)
The Parliament’s own financial reports reveal that in 2018 to 2019 the catering division received a subsidy of £506K on turnover of £1.3m.