Labor evaluation reveals a complete of £933,086 was paid out in severance pay to ministers leaving authorities roles within the 2022/23 monetary yr.
An additional £2.9m was spent on severance pay for particular advisers over the identical interval, bringing the ultimate invoice for payouts in a “yr of chaos” to £three.83m.
Greater than 20 former cupboard ministers utilized for severance pay within the 2022/23 monetary yr, together with Sajid Javid, Michael Gove, Grant Shapp’s Priti Patel, Kwasi Kwarteng and Jacob Rees-Mogg.
This was largely because of a really turbulent interval in British politics and the formation of quite a few prime groups beneath three prime ministers.
Two of those former prime ministers acquired payouts themselves.
Boris Johnson accepted £18,860 after being ousted from the highest job, as did Liz Truss for her seven weeks in quantity 10.
Emily Thornberry, Labour’s shadow attorney-general, stated it was “appalling” to see “so many Tory MPs feeling entitled to demand three months’ severance pay for only a few weeks’ work”.
Beneath the loss-of-office guidelines launched in 1991, outgoing ministers are entitled to a few months’ wage of their final wage once they depart workplace, no matter how lengthy they’ve been in workplace.
This additionally doesn’t keep in mind whether or not they had been fired or resigned.
Ms Thornberry stated: “That is the wages of chaos and British taxpayers should foot the invoice.”
“1000’s of kilos of public cash have gone straight into the pockets of Conservative ministers as a stark reward for the havoc they’ve wreaked on our nation and the injury they’ve finished to our economic system.”
“In a yr when households have struggled desperately to pay their payments and put meals on the desk, it’s a shame to assume that greater than £900,000 was spent on severance pay for the ministers who helped convey this about To deepen distress.”