Is it time to ban boozing in parliament?

Green MP Hannah Spencer "had a point" when she complained about drinking in parliament, ex-deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman has said.

Ms Spencer sparked a social media storm among MPs and the public after saying she was "really uneasy" about the drinking culture in parliament, shortly after winning the Gorton and Denton by-election in February.

Following a question about drinking in parliament from an Electoral Dysfunction Insider listener, Labour and Conservative peers Harriet Harman and Ruth Davidson agreed with her.

Over the weekend, a report from the Institute of Alcohol Studies warned MPs are drinking so much in parliament they are having their stomachs pumped, with alcohol "deeply embedded" in Westminster culture.

Baroness Harman said often the "main issue" that upsets the public in Westminster is "the drink".

"They don't like the idea of MPs boozing at public expense," she told the Insider episode of the Electoral Dysfunction podcast.

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She said a lot of people on the Labour side "attacked" Ms Spencer for complaining about the bars in parliament and for saying how bad it is to have alcohol on the premises.

"But I think she had a point there. I think it's a workplace," Baroness Harman said.

Baroness Davidson said she does not like the idea of drinking when she is working and has found it "deeply difficult" since joining the Lords five years ago as she said the "lines are completely blurred because the votes happen so late at night".

Baroness Harman added that there was a "huge row" when she and others campaigned to get a day nursery in parliament as the obvious place was to convert one of the bars.

She said: "That was one of the biggest culture clashes that you can imagine between the new guard and the old guard, with everybody up in arms that the bar was to be closed.

"But horror of horror, for it to be closed instead to become a nursery was regarded as horrifying. And actually, now everybody thinks that that was an excellent thing to do."

Bellamy's Bar was converted into a day nursery for the children and grandchildren of MPs and peers, civil servants and others working in parliament in 2010.

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