Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what his Department's policy is on alcohol consumption on the premises (a) in general and (b) during parties in his Private Office.

This Government has stopped departmental spending of taxpayers’ money on alcohol. We have closed and called time on the secret nationalised bar in our department’s basement (coined by some wags as “the Prezza Arms”).

Yet Ministers in this Department are not killjoys. As was the case under the last Administration, there is no prohibition on alcohol consumption (funded privately), and we recognise that there may be occasions when it is not inappropriate for a few drinks after work to mark a colleague leaving or note a particular milestone achieved, provided staff exercise personal responsibility, observe the standard of behaviour required by the Civil Service Code, and follow the law on drinking and driving. This is common practice in other workplaces across the land. This Department champions common sense, not the nanny state.

Also, as the lead department for community pubs, we would encourage staff to continue any celebrations in a nearby licensed premises to do their bit to support Britain’s pub trade and benefit from this Government’s cuts in beer duty and scrapping of Labour’s beer duty escalator.