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An MP has called for a change in the law that would allow restaurant staff to decide how tips are shared out and stop employers “creaming them off”.
Andrew Percy, the Conservative MP for Brigg and Goole, accused many restaurants of ignoring a 2009 voluntary code of best practice encouraging them to make their tipping policies clear.
Percy said that customers were totally confused about where their money went if they decided to leave a tip or pay an optional service charge.
He said that the existing rules, which leave it up to restaurants to decide whether to add a service charge to the bill and what to do with the money, were “neither clear nor transparent”.
Customers only have to pay a service charge if the restaurant makes this clear before the meal, and although cash tips are paid to individual employees, credit card tips are paid to the restaurant.
Percy said that employees “often did not receive all of the money the customer is trying to give to them”, and has called for the code to be made mandatory, with waiters and kitchen staff able to decide how tips are shared out rather than it being decided by the company in order to protect the rights of employees.
He also said that there should be a cap on administration fees that firms can charge for tips paid by credit card, with some charging between 8% and 10%.
MPs agreed to consider Mr Percy’s 10-minute rule bill in October, but is thought very unlikely to become law.
