The petition calling for the sale and consumption of alcohol to be banned in all House of Commons venues has passed 10,000 signatures, triggering a legal obligation for the government to formally respond within 60 days. The milestone arrives in the same week that a separate petition calling for statutory MP attendance rules crossed the same threshold – as we reported in our MP attendance petition piece.
The petition was created by Iwan ap Dafydd and closes on 26 November 2026. It now needs 100,000 signatures to be considered for a full parliamentary debate. As of publication it is heading in that direction.
You can sign the petition here: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/768417
What 10,000 actually means
Under the UK petition system, 10,000 signatures is not just a number. It is a legal trigger. The government is now required to formally respond to the petition – to set out, on the record, its official position on whether MPs should be permitted to drink alcohol in parliamentary venues. That response will be published publicly and scrutinised.
The significance of this is worth being clear about. When Hannah Spencer raised the issue at PMQs – as we reported in our full PMQs piece – the chamber told her to “get a life.” The government’s informal response, delivered by Treasury Secretary Darren Jones on LBC, was that MPs are “office workers, not conducting open heart surgery.” As we reported in our Darren Jones piece, he also mentioned call centres as a comparison – where employees are not permitted to drink at work.
Those were informal responses. This is different. A formal government response to a petition that has passed 10,000 signatures must be published, attributed and officially lodged. The government must say, in writing, why it does or does not believe MPs should be allowed to drink before voting on legislation. Whatever they say, 76% of Britons – who YouGov found consider drinking before votes unacceptable – will be able to read it.
The week that context landed
The petition hitting 10,000 did not happen in a vacuum. It hit the threshold in one of the most significant weeks yet for parliamentary accountability stories.
On the same week official parliamentary data from TheyWorkForYou and mpdata revealed that Farage had missed 77 consecutive votes – the worst attendance of any Reform MP, ranking him in the bottom 8% of all parliamentarians – as we reported in our Farage voting record piece. He has allegedly held no constituency surgery in Clacton since July 2024. He earns almost £100,000 annually.
The MP attendance petition – calling for legally binding attendance rules for all MPs – also crossed 10,000 in the same period, forcing its own government response. Two separate petitions. Two different but connected problems. Both hitting 10,000 in the same week. Both pointing to the same underlying question: what standard of conduct should the public be entitled to expect from the people they pay to represent them?
The alcohol petition’s specific answer is that people voting on other people’s lives should not be drinking while doing so. Seventy-six percent of the British public agrees. The petition is now at the stage where the government has to say what it thinks.
What the government is likely to say – and why it matters
The Darren Jones defence gives a preview of the official position. His argument – office workers, not open heart surgery, late night glass of wine with dinner – was designed to reframe the complaint as unreasonable. As we reported, it failed to engage with Spencer’s actual argument, which was specifically about drinking before afternoon votes on legislation, not late-night dinners.
The formal response will face the same problem. Whatever the government writes, it will have to square several uncomfortable facts: that parliamentary bars cost £7.4 million annually, that pints sell at £5.45 – nearly £2 below the pub opposite – that the bars still run at a £56,000 loss, and that the specific question of whether MPs drinking before votes on child poverty legislation is appropriate has been answered by 76% of Britons in one direction and by the parliamentary culture in another.
If the formal response is defensive or dismissive, the petition has a straightforward path to 100,000 – the threshold that triggers consideration for a full parliamentary debate. At that point the issue moves from a government letter to a Westminster Hall session where ministers must answer on the record in front of colleagues.
What happens next – and how to push it to 100,000
The government response will be published within 60 days. In the meantime the petition remains open until 26 November 2026. Every additional signature beyond 10,000 increases pressure and moves the total closer to the 100,000 threshold that would force a formal debate.
Sharing the petition – in person, on social media, in WhatsApp groups and work chats – is the mechanism. The argument does not need to be complicated. A majority larger than the one that elected this government believes MPs should not drink before votes. A government that cannot articulate why the bars should stay open without subsidised rent is a government that has not seriously reckoned with the question.
The petition has now made that reckoning formal.
Sign it here: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/768417
