Taxpayers have seen their financial contribution towards lunches for Welsh Labour Ministers and their staff rise by an eye-watering 61% since 2010, according to figures uncovered by the Welsh Conservatives.
Since 2010, many salaries and public sector budgets have been cut or been limited to a 1% annual rise, however the public subsidy for Welsh Labour Government meals has risen by 61% from 2010/11 to 2013/14.
In the financial year 2013/14, taxpayers forked out £422,829 subsidising meals at the Welsh Labour Government’s Cathays Park headquarters and its other offices.
The subsidy has cost taxpayers £1,373,702 in the past four years, during which time many workers have had their pay frozen.
Amongst last month’s culinary offerings to Welsh Government staff was chicken and seafood paella with saffron shallots, cooked in a ‘live chefs’ theatre’ for a bargain £3.25. Also on the menu was grilled Welsh pork loin steak with leek and black pudding mash for just £2.95.
The Welsh Government claims the rise in costs is due to extending the scope of the contract to ten sites by March 2012.
A new cheaper contract was introduced on 7th April 2014.
Nick Ramsay AM, Shadow Minister for Finance, said, “At a time when many hardworking people have had their pay frozen, a 61% hike in meal subsidies for Carwyn Jones, other Welsh Labour Ministers and staff will stick in the throat.
“Labour Ministers’ assurances that the public subsidy for their meals will fall this year will be cold comfort to families who are working hard to make ends meet and have to pay for their own food.
“Senior Welsh Government civil servants and Labour Ministers, some of whom earn more than four times the average Welsh salary, could easily afford to buy their own meals.
“While the Welsh Government may not be the only employer to subsidise staff meals, few will have risen by an inflation-busting 61%, while the rest of the country is experiencing austerity.
“We welcome the assurance that the subsidy will fall this year, but there are questions about why such an expensive contract was negotiated in the first place and whether in an age of austerity, such a costly subsidy was affordable.
“This £400,000+ annual subsidy calls into question Labour’s near-constant whingeing about reductions in its budgets, having clearly failed to properly prepare for austerity by sorting out its own budget priorities.”
