Strip Liz Truss of her £115,000 a 12 months allowance, Lib Dems demand

Liz Truss should be stripped of her £115,000 a year allowance, Lib Dem deputy leader Daisy Cooper has demanded.

It comes as the party’s analysis found the former-PM’s departure from No10 cost taxpayers £230,000 in severance payments for sacked ministers.

Ms Cooper said Lib Dem plans to scrap severance for disgraced ministers would end the culture of “rewards for failure”. “People are sick of the sight of Conservatives getting rewarded for incompetence, rule-breaking and sleaze,” she told the Mirror.

“Liz Truss ’s brief tenure in Downing Street was a national embarrassment but Rishi Sunak is making British taxpayers foot the bill. Truss’s trousering of a six-figure sum every year is a kick in the teeth to the families she left with spiralling mortgage costs across the country.”

Under their plans, ministers who resign after breaking the Ministerial Code would be banned from claiming severance pay – worth up to £17,000. The total cost for severance pay for Liz Truss’ ministers came to £232,695.

The Public Duty Cost Allowance (PDCA) is available to all former Prime Ministers who are active in public life unless they are serving as leader of the opposition. It means they are entitled to claim £115,000 from the taxpayer every year for life to pay office, travel and staff expenses.

“The Liberal Democrats would end the Conservatives’ crony culture of rewards for failure by restricting access to the Public Duty Cost Allowance and to ministerial severance pay,” said Ms Cooper. “Conservative Ministers have feathered their own nests and asked the British people to pay for the plumage. It’s time to show them the door and stop paying them on the way out.”