In a community where many of the nations most powerful and some of the richest people arrive for a days activity, they begin by enjoying Breakfast in very posh and historic restaurants and cafes on the campus of the community. In the light of this arrangement it seems understandable that the organisation which runs the catering service is asked to extend the opening hours of some of their cafes to accommodate the large number of workers who are employed to enable the campus to operate in a safe and clean manner. When some of the workers arrive on campus at 4am and the cafes and restaurants open at 7.30am or 8am and at that point are prioritised for the powerful men and women, it seems reasonable for the caterers to open cafes at 7am or even 6.30am. However the response from the caterers is very hard to understand when they state “The opening hours of the catering operations are designed to ensure the most efficient use of resources to avoid unnecessary additional costs to the taxpayer” 

The reality is that the price of the breakfasts and indeed other meals in the cafes and restaurants on this campus are set at a much lower level than is available at most working persons cafes in industrial settings across the UK, let alone in Westminster in central London based on the figures described in this article. So if the House of Commons and House of Lords wish to extend the hours of the Cafes and Restaurants to ensure that Police Officers some of whom by 6.30 or 7am will have been working for over 2 hours and cleaners and IT and Audio Visual engineers and security guards etc etc. can enjoy a meaningful breakfast they should be radical and put up the cost of the vastly subsidised meals and drinks that are currently offered to MPs and Peers who are very well paid from the public purse. Then the cost of extending the opening hours will not cost us anything more.