The University of Cambridge spends almost £3 million on wine a year. It also employs over 1,000 people who are paid under the living wage – £7.65 per hour, as calculated by the Institute for Social Policy Research in line with living costs.

King's College has both the highest expenditure on wine and the highest number of employees paid under the living wage. So while fellows at King's sip on their Merlot, those serving it remain at risk of being in in-work poverty. In fact, the lavish £50,000 spent on free wine for fellows would be more than enough to cover the cost of raising all full time workers' pay to the living wage.

But this is not about wine. It's not about the financial expenditure of a multi-millionaire university. This is about respect.

The Cambridge living wage debate, insofar as it exists between exasperated students and reluctant colleges, seems to be focusing on the wrong issues. Those seeing it as a question of university finances are missing the point, which is that the people who make our university work are not being afforded the basic dignity of a living wage. The people who empty our bins and clean our toilets – people we know and speak to on a daily basis – are not being paid enough to live on.

Of course it’s great that people are talking about the living wage now that it's been shown how much Cambridge spends on wine. But people should be talking about it regardless. Colleges shouldn't be embarrassed because they spend more on wine than it would cost to raise their employees to a living wage. They should be embarrassed because they are ignoring their social duties at a time when having a job no longer ensures freedom from poverty. They should be embarrassed because they aren't paying a living wage in the first place.

Chris Clarke, a porter at King's College, said of the living wage: “It’s basic fairness, I just think it’s the right thing to do.” Going on to say of King's specifically that, “the college seems to think that it does pay over the living wage when you take into consideration pensions, car parking and the like. But that’s not really the issue.”

What colleges need to remember is that free parking and pension schemes are no use when you don’t earn enough to put aside for a pension or can't afford the petrol to drive a car. Likewise, what good is a free library pass when you have to rush from part-time job to part-time job just to make sure you have enough to live on?

Action must be taken, and students must be the ones leading the way. Staff play an essential role in all living wage campaigns across the university, but until they have the security to campaign without jeopardising their jobs, the onus must remain on students. Aside from the fact that most of us have a £9,000 per year financial stake in the university, we have a moral obligation to make sure that the institution that we are a part of lives up to a certain code of ethics which we can, and should, define. Our voice as a student movement is more powerful than we realise, and we need to use it to hold the colleges and the university that we are all members of to account.

So, as much as it's fun to talk about Cambridge being posh and spending absurd amounts of money on wine, we need to get onto the real issues. We need our university and our colleges to pay a living wage now, because for every day that they delay, there is another day of someone being paid under their worth.

Daisy Hughes and Barney McCay lead the King's College Living Wage Campaign. 

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