On the same day that a parliamentary report on hunger revealed that the number of people using food banks has risen to unprecedented levels, the House of Lords refused to share catering expenses with the Commons because they were worried about the quality of champagne! Apparently the peers rejected a plan to merge contracts over fears about the quality of their bubbly. While the Lords and MPs share IT, cleaning and archive services, reaching agreement on champagne purchasing was seen as a step too far. The House of Lords has a £1.3m annual catering budget and has bought in more than 17,000 bottles of champagne since 2010 the last election (that’s 5 bottles per peer at a cost of £265,770). Meanwhile thousands of working families are forced to depend on charity hand-outs this Christmas and organisers of festive hampers for low-income households say the numbers receiving help are higher than ever.