A survey of 190 MPs and their staff has found that Parliament remains “Britain’s last alcohol-soaked workplace”, where free alcohol is available from midday and drinking is intertwined with career advancement. The report, by the Institute of Alcohol Studies (IAS), said some MPs have had their stomachs pumped in hospital after excessive drinking and returned to work the next day.
Alcohol ‘embedded’ in working life
The study, based on responses from 24 MPs, 58 Westminster staff and 108 constituency office personnel, found that alcohol was “available throughout the working day, frequently provided for free, and often intertwined with career advancement”. Participants said long hours, loneliness, the pressures of the job and the need to socialise with ministers all acted as catalysts for drinking.
The IAS report said: “The findings suggest that Westminster remains a highly unusual workplace where alcohol is embedded in professional life, networking, lobbying and socialising in ways that would be exceptional in most other UK workplaces.” It also pointed to the commercialisation of parliament as an events venue as a contributing factor.
Free alcohol at daytime lobbying events
MPs described how readily alcohol was available throughout the day. One said: “Going to a meeting at noon and alcohol’s available. Of course, I’m not used to that in my old job.” Another said: “You can start drinking here from 12 o’clock onwards and go around and consume large amounts of alcohol, and it’s relatively freely available.”
Free alcohol at events on the parliamentary estate, arranged by outside organisations to lobby MPs, emerged as a particular issue. One MP said: “Where else in a work environment would you go, unless it was the works Christmas do, and there was free alcohol there for you? It just wouldn’t happen in real life.” Another described such events as a “legitimised opportunity to drink alcohol”, while a fifth said the routine provision helped create a “casual attitude to drinking”.
Incidents and concern
The report comes amid continuing concern about Westminster’s drinking culture, including a police investigation after an MP’s researcher allegedly had her drink spiked in the Strangers’ bar, which led to its temporary closure. It also follows revelations that the Labour MP Neil Coyle was at one time drinking up to 200 units of alcohol a week, the equivalent of 10 pints a night.
Hannah Spencer, the Green MP elected at the Gorton and Denton byelection in February, received a mixed reaction from MPs when in April she called Westminster’s drinking culture “unprofessional and worrying” and said it led to “questionable and dangerous behaviour”. She said: “You can smell the alcohol when people are in between votes.”
Survey findings
Of the MPs interviewed, 42% had been offered an alcoholic drink at a work meeting or event on a weekly basis during the previous six months, and 13% said this happened daily. A fifth (22%) had concerns about a colleague’s drinking. Almost one in 10 respondents reported a negative experience because of someone else’s drinking at work, and 70% either did not know or were unsure how to raise a concern about a colleague.
The IAS said: “The availability of alcohol was seen to encourage unhealthy behaviour in general, from affecting colleagues’ sleep and stress levels to potentially normalising high-risk drinking, with one MP referring to colleagues having had their stomachs pumped in hospital and going back into Westminster the following day.”
MPs and campaigners urge rethink
The Labour MP Cat Smith said: “We wouldn’t accept a surgeon operating after a drink or a driver getting behind the wheel – so why should we accept legislators voting on the laws of the land after one? If we’re serious about being a professional workplace, we have to ask hard questions about practices like late night votes that sit alongside on-tap bars.”
Beccy Cooper, a Labour MP who worked as a public health consultant before entering parliament in 2024, said the report was a wake-up call. In a foreword, she suggested parliament should draw up its first formal workplace policy on alcohol. She added: “Two findings stood out to me. Almost one in 10 respondents reported a negative experience because of someone else’s drinking at work and 70% either didn’t know, or weren’t sure, how to raise a concern about a colleague’s drinking. That combination – real, measurable harm and no clear route to address it – is exactly the kind of gap we need to address.”
Katherine Severi, the IAS’s chief executive, said Westminster should limit the provision of free alcohol to evening events as part of a renewed drive to make it a more modern workplace, which many MPs and staff support. “Very few professions these days would allow free alcohol from midday, or regularly host outside organisations sponsoring events where drinking is the norm during working hours,” she said.
Parliament’s response
In 2023, parliament’s independent complaints and grievance scheme said alcohol was a “frequent factor” in its investigations into alleged misconduct. Its findings from 30 investigations carried out between 2021 and 2022 said drinking in parliament’s bars was “leading to intimidating behaviour like shouting and swearing”. In July 2023, the parliamentary standards commissioner, Daniel Greenberg, said alcohol had led to “behaviour problems” and suggested the sale of alcohol on the estate be kept under review.
A parliament spokesperson said everyone working there had been reminded to use alcohol responsibly, but indicated immediate changes were unlikely. “Any changes to parliament’s provision of alcohol would ultimately be a matter for members to decide on. The estate is a unique working environment that includes public access and events,” they said. “Parliament’s behaviour code makes clear that everyone should be treated with respect at all times, and those who choose to drink alcohol on the estate must do so responsibly.”
Westminster has already taken steps to encourage more responsible drinking, including a greater provision of no- and low-alcohol products and giving venue staff the right to refuse to serve anyone who is, or looks likely to become, intoxicated.
