Labour to force vote on reform of ministerial severance payments
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The Labour Party will use an Opposition Day Debate on Tuesday (6
February) to try and take control of the Parliamentary Order Paper
and present a Bill to reform the system of taxpayer-funded
ministerial severance payments. Since 1991, when John Major was the
Prime Minister, any individual under the age of 65 who leaves their
ministerial job has been entitled to a quarter of their final
annual salary in severance pay, no matter how long they have been
in post or the...Request free trial
The Labour Party will use an Opposition Day Debate on Tuesday (6 February) to try and take control of the Parliamentary Order Paper and present a Bill to reform the system of taxpayer-funded ministerial severance payments. Since 1991, when John Major was the Prime Minister, any individual under the age of 65 who leaves their ministerial job has been entitled to a quarter of their final annual salary in severance pay, no matter how long they have been in post or the circumstances of their departure. At present, they are only required to repay the money if they return to a new job within three weeks. It was recently revealed that, over the course of 2022/23, a total of £933,086 was handed out in severance payments to 97 different ministers who either quit their roles or got the sack during the year of political chaos which saw three different Prime Ministers in charge in Downing Street. As a result of the unprecedented turnover in ministers, dozens of Tory MPs were able to claim three months in severance despite serving for only a matter of weeks in their ministerial posts, and a number of others kept their full payouts even after returning to new jobs just a month or two later. Recipients included the likes of Brandon Lewis, who accepted two payments totalling £33,572 in just four months after leaving his jobs as Northern Ireland Secretary in July 2022 and Justice Secretary 16 weeks later and would have had his entitlement cut to £13,594 under Labour's proposed reforms. His colleagues Greg Hands and Grant Shapps also kept their full three-month severance payouts of £16,876 and £7,920 respectively, despite returning to new jobs less than six weeks later. Johnny Mercer also accepted a £7,920 payout in September 2022 after just two months in the job of Veterans Minister, only to return to exactly the same job seven weeks later under Rishi Sunak. Amid the chaos, it was also recently revealed that five former ministers, including Nadine Dorries and Peter Bone, had been handed severance payments worth a total of more than £50,000 by mistake, having been aged over 65 at the time of their departure. The Cabinet Office has now asked them to return the money. Labour will put forward a motion tomorrow which will require the government to set aside Parliamentary time for a Bill to reform the severance rules. Under the reforms proposed in Labour's motion:
Labour has calculated that, if its reforms had been in place during 2022/23, the severance bill for that financial year would have been cut by £377,993, or just over 40 per cent of the total, with 75 of the 97 claimants seeing their severance payments reduced by an average of more than £5,000. Emily Thornberry MP, Labour's Shadow Attorney General, who will present the party's motion in the House of Commons, said: "In recent days, we have heard some Tory MPs bleat that it was not their fault that they accepted these exorbitant and undeserved severance payments, for they were just following the rules that have been in place for the last 30 years. "If they really believe that, then they will take the chance which we are giving them to change the rules, and reform the system which their party has brought into disrepute. If not, we will know the real truth, which is that they are more interested in lining their own pockets than protecting taxpayers' money." Ends Notes: The motion Labour will present in its Opposition Day debate is titled 'Ministerial Severance (Reform)', and reads as follows: "That this House calls on the Government to immediately introduce legislation to amend the Ministerial and other Pensions and Salaries Act 1991 to ensure that — (i) departing Ministers who have not attained the age of 65 receive an amount equal to one-quarter of their earnings over the previous twelve months as a Minister, minus any period covered by a previous severance entitlement, where that is lower than an amount equal to one-quarter of the annual salary paid to that Minister before their departure; (ii) any person who returns to ministerial office after three weeks but within the period equivalent to the number of days of salary that they were paid in severance must return the corresponding amount of their severance payment; (iii) no person departing ministerial office while under investigation for allegations of gross misconduct or breaching the ministerial code will be entitled to a severance payment unless and until they are cleared of those allegations by the relevant authority; and makes provision as set out in this Order, to take effect unless such a Bill has been introduced by no later than Tuesday 26 February 2024." The rest of the motion deals with the technical details of taking over the order paper on the day in question to allow time for the proposed Bill. Full details of Labour's proposed reforms, announced on 26 January 2024, can be found at the link below, along with details of the impact that the reforms would have had on payments to individual ministers in 2022/23: |