Political turmoil in 2022 cost UK taxpayer ?3m in severance fees

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The chaos at the heart of government last year cost the British taxpayer more than ?3m in severance fees, because of the huge turnover of ministers and advisers over the course of three prime ministerships, documents have revealed.

The government spent hundreds of thousands of pounds paying off senior ministers, including the former prime ministers Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, and another ?2.9m in payouts to their advisers.

Rishi Sunak handed back nearly ?17,000 that he received after quitting as Boris Johnson’s chancellor, and others are under pressure to do the same, as Labour and the Liberal Democrats attacked senior Conservatives for taking large one-off sums having overseen deteriorating economic conditions.

Emily Thornberry, the shadow attorney general, called the special adviser payments “the wages of chaos”.

Her colleague Angela Rayner, the Labour deputy leader, said: “After the mess they left our country in, Johnson and Truss should be hanging their heads in embarrassment, not walking away with an enormous payoff … It shows a staggering lack of shame for them to accept this money.”

Daisy Cooper, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats said: “This is a slap in the face for all those who have seen their mortgages soar because of Truss and Kwarteng’s disastrous mini-budget. It is frankly insulting that whilst people struggle with the cost of living crisis, those responsible for their financial hardship are being showered with tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ cash.”

The economic impact of Truss’s 49 days in power are well documented, with her mini-budget having sent mortgage costs to their highest rates in more than a decade.

A series of government reports published on the final day before MPs leave Westminster for the summer recess lay out for the first time the administrative costs incurred during last year’s political turbulence.

The documents show that dozens of ministers received payouts when they either quit Johnson’s cabinet or were replaced by Truss.

Truss promised an economic revolution when entering office, sweeping aside the last vestiges of the Johnson government and bringing in an almost entirely new ministerial team. Many of those then received their own payouts when they left government weeks later.

Those receiving lump sums included Johnson and Truss themselves, both of whom took home ?18,600 as former prime ministers. For Truss, that equated to ?381 for each of the 49 days she was in office.

They also included Kwasi Kwarteng, the former chancellor, whose sacking by Truss cost the taxpayer ?16,876, or ?444 for each of the 38 days he served. A spokesperson for Truss declined to comment, while Kwarteng did not respond to a request to do so.

Robert Buckland received ?16,876 after spending less than four months as Welsh secretary, while Conor Burns was paid ?7,920 after spending a month as trade minister.

Grant Shapps received ?16,876 after quitting as transport secretary in September, even though he returned to government as home secretary six weeks later. If he had returned to government three weeks earlier, he would not have been eligible for the payout.

Sunak was given the same amount after quitting as Boris Johnson’s chancellor, only to return as prime minister just over three months later. The Treasury’s accounts made clear that Sunak handed back his payment.

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Chris Pincher, whose resignation as a minister amid a groping scandal helped bring down Johnson, received ?7,920 after leaving office.

Truss’s most expensive sacking was that of the top Treasury mandarin Tom Scholar. She sacked Scholar on her first day in office as her allies promised an end to established Treasury orthodoxy and set Britain on a new low-tax path to higher growth.

Critics blamed that decision in part on the market turbulence that followed, as investors rushed to sell UK government debt in the wake of the mini-budget. The decision also had an immediate cost to taxpayers of ?457,000 – ?355,000 in severance pay to Scholar, and a further ?122,000 because ministers wanted him to leave immediately rather than serve his notice period.

On top of that, the government paid out ?2.9m to special advisers as they left government. When a minister is sacked, their advisers automatically lose their jobs too, and they are eligible for their own severance packages. One government source told the Guardian that 154 advisers were given such payments during the financial year 2022-23.

One Tory MP said: “There should be rules around how many changes there can be within government over a 12-month period, for example limiting it to 25% of the payroll in any given year. Otherwise it’s not value for money.”

Boris Johnson’s payout is only part of the cost he has incurred on the taxpayer. Separate information published by the government on Thursday showed the total legal costs for fighting a parliamentary inquiry into his Partygate denials were ?265,522.

The Cabinet Office extended the budget by a further ?20,000 to help the former prime minister defend himself. Taxpayers will foot the bill, despite the cross-party committee eventually finding Johnson committed five contempts of parliament.