What was claimed
MPs can claim £50 to buy breakfast.
Our verdict
False. MPs can claim up to £25 per night for food and non-alcoholic drinks bought during an overnight stay outside their constituency or London on parliamentary business.
No, MPs can’t claim £50 to buy their breakfast
An incorrect claim that MPs can claim £50 to cover the cost of their breakfast is circulating on social media again.
A Facebook post says: “Not one family in Britain should have to use a food bank when a mp [sic] can claim £50 for a breakfast.” We’ve written about this claim many times before and it’s been doing the rounds since at least 2020.
Rules set by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) state that MPs can claim expenses of up to £25 for each night that they spend away from their constituency or London on parliamentary business, to cover food and non-alcoholic drinks during this time.
In theory, an MP could spend all of that on breakfast, but they couldn’t claim any more. And they must provide evidence of the cost incurred.
If an MP needs to spend a night in a hotel on parliamentary business, they can claim the cost in some circumstances. They can claim up to a maximum of £210 per night in London or Europe, or £150 per night in the UK outside London. This could include the cost of breakfast, if breakfast is included in the price of the hotel.
Claims like this are very common on social media, and we’ve previously written about other misleading claims and misconceptions about MPs’ expenses and pay. False or misleading claims about politicians and the political process have the potential to affect people’s opinions of individuals and parties, and decisions about voting.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because MPs cannot claim £50 to cover the cost of breakfast.