David Lammy racked up £521,525 in food and drink expenses during his first 233 days as foreign secretary.
This figure appears to refer to procurement card spends of over £500 in restaurants and bars, covering the entirety of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office over a four month period, not David Lammy’s personal food and drink expenses.
A number of social media posts have claimed that David Lammy MP has incurred £521,525 in food and drink expenses during his first 233 days as foreign secretary.
But this isn’t right. The figure refers to certain food and drink expenses incurred across the entirety of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) over a four month period, not how much was spent by Mr Lammy personally.
A FCDO spokesperson told Full Fact the social media post was “false and misleading” and confirmed the spend “relates to the entire FCDO Network—covering over 17,000 staff across 281 worldwide offices—over a period of four months”.
We often see claims about expenses incurred by MPs on social media. Full Fact has written about other misleading claims and misconceptions about MPs’ expenses and pay many times before.
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Screenshots and videos shared on social media claim: “David Lammy has been in his role as foreign secretary for 233 days racking up £521,525 in food and drink expenses. An impressive £2238 a day. The state pension works out at £31.60 a day”.
Mr Lammy was appointed foreign secretary on 5 July 2024. His 233rd day in the job was 23 February 2025, when this claim was first shared on X (formerly Twitter). At the time of writing on 25 April, he had been in the role for over 290 days. The £521,525 figure appears to have come from FCDO data on procurement card spending over £500.
In 2024, spending above £500 in the category “restaurants and bars” was £136,443.92 in July, £93,005.02 in August, £108,422.64 in September, and £183,655.84 in October, the latest month data is available for.
This adds up to a total of £521,527.42—very close to the figure used on social media, but crucially this spending is for the whole department.
As others have also noted, in February 2025 the Times reported that Mr Lammy’s department had incurred £521,525 of expenses in restaurants and bars over this time period.
A spokesperson for the FCDO told us the spending in this period was “equivalent to spending under previous administrations”.
According to the same departmental datasets, during the last four months of the previous Conservative government (between 1 March and 30 June 2024) equivalent FCDO spending was £575,479.79.
The FCDO referred Full Fact to publicly available data on ministerial gifts, hospitality, travel and meetings. At the time of writing, only datasets covering FCDO ministerial meetings and travel for the period July to September 2024 and October to December 2024 (not the entirety of Mr Lammy’s first 233 days, which go up to February 2025) were available. Data for gifts and hospitality only cover up to 4 July 2024, under the previous Conservative government.
The figures for ministerial travel show “associated costs” for Mr Lammy (including all visas, accommodation and meals but not travel itself) between July and December, were £5,979. This figure does not break down the food costs (which would likely be a proportion of the total), but is still far off the £521,525 claimed in the social media posts.
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), which regulates and administers MPs’ expenses, confirmed to Full Fact that if an overnight stay is part of his role as Foreign Secretary, Mr Lammy’s business costs are paid by the FCDO.
MPs can claim up to £25 a night for food and non-alcoholic drink if travelling outside of their constituency and Westminster (for example, on an overseas trip) as part of their role as an MP. An IPSA spokesperson told Full Fact that it “provides funding to MPs for costs they incur whilst performing their parliamentary duties” and that “MPs are not reimbursed for any personal costs, nor are they offered any payment for the cost of food and drink within a normal working day”.
The posts claim Mr Lammy’s food and drink expenses are “£2238 a day” and that “the state pension works out at £31.60 a day”. The full value of the new state pension was correct at the time the posts were published. It has since increased to the equivalent of £32.89 a day.
However, the exact amount someone receives may differ and depends on if they were contracted out before 2016, the number of National Insurance qualifying years they have and if they paid into the Additional State Pension before 2016.
Men born before 6 April 1951 and women born before 6 April 1953 receive the basic state pension, which equates to £25.21 a day. The exact amount received depends on your National Insurance record.
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 missing context because the figure refers to food and drink procurement card expenses over £500 incurred by the whole Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office over a four month period, not by Mr Lammy personally.
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