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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Rowena Mason Whitehall editor

Government spent £27,000 on wine and spirits during 2020-22

A man delivers bottles of champagne-style sparkling wine at Downing Street on 23 January 2020.
Let the bottles pile high: a man delivers champagne-style sparkling wine at Downing Street on 23 January 2020. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

The government consumed more than 1,400 bottles of wine and spirits at the taxpayer’s expense and topped up its cellar with £27,000 of fresh stock during the two years of the Covid pandemic from 2020 to 2022, new figures show.

The report on the government’s wine cellar was published on Thursday after repeated delays. It showed that 130 bottles were consumed during the year to March 2021, while a further 1,300 were drunk during the year to March 2022.

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