Nearly £1 million was paid out to quitting ministers throughout Boris Johnson and Liz Truss’s chaotic administrations, evaluation reveals.
Figures buried within the Department of Health and Social Care’s accounts present Sir Sajid Javid accepted £16,876 in compensation after he helped to set off Mr Johnson’s exit from No10 by resigning as Health Secretary in July 2022. Sir Sajid was the twentieth Cabinet Minister to obtain a bumper payoff through the turmoil of 2022, taking the ultimate invoice for severance payouts for ministers to £933,086, in keeping with Labour.
Some of those that accepted money below the “loss of office” guidelines, re-joined the Government months later. It was revealed final summer season that £2.9 million of taxpayers’ money was spent on payouts to particular advisers in 2022/23, taking the whole value together with their bosses to £3.83 million.
Mr Johnson and Ms Truss each accepted funds of £18,660, regardless of being ousted from workplace in shame. Michael Gove, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Grant Shapps, Dame Priti Patel, Dominic Raab and Kwasi Kwarteng additionally took the payouts.
The Mirror beforehand revealed that Cabinet Office bunglers wrongly awarded flasher ex-MP Peter Bone nearly £5,600 of taxpayers’ money when he was sacked as a minister. The veteran politician was over the age of 65 when he was handed the payout – which implies he mustn’t have been eligible.
Three different ministers – Maggie Throup, Sir David Evennett and Baroness Stedman-Scott – had been all additionally wrongly awarded compensation resulting from their ages, with a complete invoice of £33,107.
Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry mentioned: “These are the wages of chaos, with Britain’s taxpayers forced to pick up the bill. Thousands of pounds of public money have gone directly into the pockets of Tory minsters, as a sick reward for the mess they made of our country and the damage they did to our economy.
“In a 12 months when households had been desperately struggling to pay their payments and put meals on the desk, it’s disgraceful to assume that greater than £900,000 was spent on severance funds for the ministers who helped to deepen that distress.”
Downing Street said there are no plans to change the rules around payouts for ministers.
Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman said: “There are long-established guidelines round severance funds and ministers that lose their roles and are then reappointed in a sure timeframe, for instance, will not be eligible. That is one thing that’s set out clearly and I believe agreed by means of Parliament. I’m not conscious of any plans to alter that strategy.”