£933,086: final ministerial severance bill for year of chaos revealed by Labour
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The final total for severance payments made to outgoing ministers
during the chaos of the 2022/23 financial year was £933,086, it has
been revealed. The last additions to the total came when the
Department for Health and Social Care published its annual report
for 2022/23, confirming that – amongst other recipients – Sajid
Javid accepted the full £16,876 payment for Cabinet ministers after
he quit Boris Johnson's government in July 2022. It has previously
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The final total for severance payments made to outgoing ministers during the chaos of the 2022/23 financial year was £933,086, it has been revealed. The last additions to the total came when the Department for Health and Social Care published its annual report for 2022/23, confirming that – amongst other recipients – Sajid Javid accepted the full £16,876 payment for Cabinet ministers after he quit Boris Johnson's government in July 2022. It has previously been revealed that a record total of £2.9 million was spent on severance payments for the dozens of special advisers who left their jobs in 2022/23, all of whom were entitled to a minimum of three months' salary in compensation. Put together with the cost of ministerial payouts, the final bill for severance payouts made to ministers and their advisers during the year of Tory turmoil comes to £3.83 million. Under the current 'Loss of Office' rules introduced by John Major's government in 1991, each departing minister over the age of 65 is entitled to three months of their final salary when they leave their role, no matter how long they have been in post, and regardless of whether they have resigned, been sacked, or even had the party whip removed. They are only required to pay back the sum if they return to a new role within three weeks. Including Sajid Javid, more than 20 Cabinet ministers claimed severance pay during a year that saw three different administrations in Downing Street. Michael Gove, Grant Shapps and Simon Hart accepted £16,876 payouts, only to return to the Cabinet a matter of weeks later. Kwasi Kwarteng claimed his full severance despite the disastrous 40 days he spent as Chancellor. Others to walk away with a £16,876 payout included Priti Patel, Nadine Dorries, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Simon Clarke, and Alok Sharma. Brandon Lewis claimed two such payments in less than four months, worth a total of £33,752, after leaving his roles as Northern Ireland Secretary in July 2022 and Justice Secretary sixteen weeks later. Dominic Raab, who both preceded and succeeded Lewis at the Ministry of Justice, claimed £9,043 for the period he was out of the role. Shailesh Vara and Greg Clark also received payouts of £16,876, equivalent to three months salary, after less than nine weeks of work as Cabinet ministers in the late stages of Boris Johnson's administration, for which they earned just £11,100 each in wages. Even shorter-lived, Michael Ellis claimed £23,612 – equivalent to three months of the Attorney General's salary – despite filling the role for only seven weeks under Liz Truss, while his fellow Law Officer, Edward Timpson, received £14,490 after doing the job of Solicitor General for nine weeks under Boris Johnson, as did his predecessor, Alex Chalk. Boris Johnson himself accepted a payout of £18,860 after being forced to quit as Prime Minister, as did Liz Truss after her seven weeks in the job. In addition to those severance payments, both former Prime Ministers are entitled to an annual 'Public Duty Costs Allowance', currently set at a maximum of £115,000 per year for life. The most notorious payouts were made to Chris Pincher and Peter Bone, who claimed £7,920 and £5,593 respectively, despite losing their jobs due to allegations of misconduct, the latter after only eleven weeks in a ministerial role. Worse still, Bone was one of four front-benchers who were handed severance payments despite being over the age of 65 at the time of their departure, apparently as a result of an 'administrative mistake'. The DHSC annual report published today reveals that Maggie Throup was paid £5,593 when she left the department in September 2022, despite being over 65 at that time. The combined total of the payouts made in error to Mr Bone, Ms Throup, Sir David Evennett and Baroness Stedman-Scott was £33,107. Current Health Secretary Victoria Atkins claimed £7,920 when she resigned from Boris Johnson's government in July 2022 but returned16 weeks later under Rishi Sunak; current Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch also claimed a £7,920 payout when she quit the Johnson government but returned nine weeks later with a promotion to the Cabinet under Liz Truss; and former Tory Chairman Greg Handswaited less than five weeks to return to ministerial office, but still kept the full £7,920 he received in September 2022. As well as Michael Gove and Dominic Raab, a number of other ministers accepted payouts after leaving their roles only to return to exactly the same jobs weeks later under a new Prime Minister: Julia Lopez waited nine weeks to return to her role as media minister, after claiming £7,920 in July 2022; George Freeman pocketed £7,920 when he quit the Johnson government in July 2022 before returning to his role as science minister under Rishi Sunak 16 weeks later; and Rebecca Pow had the same break before returning to her role as junior Defra minister, accepting £5,593 in the interim. Perhaps most brazen of all, Plymouth Moor View MP Johnny Mercer accepted £7,920 in severance in September 2022 after just two months working in the Cabinet Office as veterans minister, told his local newspaper point-blank that he had not accepted any such payment, and then returned to exactly the same job seven weeks later under Rishi Sunak. Across the government as a whole, a total of 98 severance payments were claimed by outgoing front-benchers in financial year 2022/23, including seven individuals who currently attend Cabinet, with an average payout of £9,521.28 across the board. The smallest amounts were received by assistant whips, eleven of whom claimed a £4,479 payout, three of them – Damien Moore, Darren Henry and Mark Jenkinson – after just five weeks in post under Liz Truss. The highest payout went to Baroness Evans, who received £26,090 after being removed by Liz Truss as Leader of the House of Lords. No fewer than 28 ministers accepted three months of wages in severance, despite serving for less than three months on the front bench. They included the likes of Alec Shelbrooke and Jackie Doyle-Price (both £7,920) and Jonathan Gullis, Katherine Fletcher, Sarah Atherton, Marcus Fysh, Dean Russell, Caroline Johnson and Rob Butler (all £5,593), whose stars rose and fell with Liz Truss, having never achieved ministerial office before. Shelbrooke, Doyle-Price and Butler were all subsequently rewarded for their service not just with severance payments but with a place on Liz Truss's resignation honours, receiving a knighthood, a damehood, and an OBE respectively. Ministers who combined a severance payment with a place on Boris Johnson's resignation honours list included Conor Burns, Simon Clarke, Andrea Jenkyns, Amanda Milling, Priti Patel and Jacob Rees-Mogg. The high costs of ministerial payouts have continued in the current 2023/24 financial year under Rishi Sunak's premiership. His November 2023 reshuffle alone created severance entitlements worth a total of £112,602 for the 14 Tory ministers who departed their roles, although it is not yet known which of them claimed their payouts. Emily Thornberry MP, Labour's Shadow Attorney General, said: "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 year when families were desperately struggling to pay their bills and put food on the table, it is disgraceful to think that more than £900,000 was spent on severance payments for the ministers who helped to deepen that misery. "It is especially appalling to see so many Tory MPs who felt entitled to claim three months' severance for just a few weeks' work; to accept new jobs while still benefiting from the previous severance payment they had received; or to pick up their payouts even after being forced out due to misconduct. None of those individuals have any shame, and the sooner we put them all permanently out of office the better. “What Britain needs now is a hard-working Labour government led by Keir Starmer, focusing every day on how we can help people through the cost-of-living crisis, instead of these shameless Tory grifters, whose sole concern is how they can line their own pockets. Only Labour will deliver the change that our country so desperately needs." Ends
Notes: The table below shows each severance payment recorded in the annual reports published by Whitehall departments for the financial year 2022/23, other than the Law Officers, whose payments were published in response to a PQ from Emily Thornberry. There is a hyperlink to each source attached to the name of the department. The 'days in service' column refers to the number of continuous days that each individual had held ministerial office prior to the departure for which they received their payment, although in many cases, they held that specific office for much shorter periods of time, and in numerous cases, their previous office was at a lower pay grade than the one for which they received their three-months severance payout. Individuals marked with an asterisk served for less than three months in their ministerial role prior to accepting a severance payment equivalent to three months salary in that role. Individuals marked with a circle returned to ministerial office within three months of receiving the severance payment in question. Individuals marked with an 'X' should not have received their payments having been aged over 65 at the time. And individuals marked with an exclamation point left their posts while facing allegations of misconduct.
The relevant section of the 1991 Ministerial and other Pensions and Salaries Act can be found at this link (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1991/5/section/4), and the key text governing the payments above is reproduced below:
(1) Where a person who has not attained the age of sixty-five— (a) ceases at any time (“the material time”) after the passing of this Act to hold a relevant office; and (b) does not again become the holder of a relevant office within the period of three weeks beginning at the material time, he shall be entitled to a payment under this section. (2) Subject to subsection (3) below, the amount of the payment to which a person who has ceased to hold a relevant office is entitled under this section is an amount equal to one-quarter of the annual amount of the salary which was being paid to that person in respect of that office immediately before the material time. |
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