Ministers who breach sleaze rules won't get severance payments

Telegraph

3 days ago

Ministers who are sacked for breaching sleaze rules will no longer receive severance payments under government plans.
At present, ministers who lose their jobs are entitled to three months' pay, which amounts to nearly £17,000 for a Cabinet minister.
Pat McFadden, a Cabinet Office minister, announced on Monday morning that ministers guilty of a serious breach of the ministerial code would no longer receive the money.
The payment will also not be given to those who served less than six months in the job.
The move is part of an overhaul aimed at restoring trust in standards in public life, which will result in the launch of a new Ethics and Integrity Commission.
The commission, created from the Committee on Standards in Public Life, will have a wider, stronger remit to oversee integrity across every part of the public sector.
Ministers will also scrap the advisory committee on business appointments (Acoba) as part of the shake-up.
Critics have said the watchdog, which assesses the jobs former ministers take after leaving government for conflicts of interest, is toothless and unable to enforce its rules properly.
Under the changes, ministers who refuse to comply with its judgments and those of its successors will have to pay back any severance pay.
Mr McFadden said: 'This overhaul will mean there are stronger rules, fewer quangos and clearer lines of accountability.
'The Committee on Standards in Public Life has played an important role in the past three decades. These changes give it a new mandate for the future.
'But whatever the institutional landscape, the public will in the end judge politicians and Government by how they do their jobs and how they fulfil the principles of public service.'
Ministers are currently entitled to a severance payment equivalent to three months' salary when they leave office for any reason, and no matter how long they have been in the job.
Under the changes being announced by the Government, ministers who return to office within three months of leaving will also not receive their salary until the end of that three-month period.
The reforms are aimed at preventing situations like that under the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss governments, which saw some Conservative ministers who served for little more than a month receive payouts of thousands of pounds.
Labour says £253,720 was paid out to 35 outgoing Tory ministers who were in post for less than six months during 2022, some of whom were in their jobs for 37 days.
The new Ethics and Integrity Commission will report annually to the Prime Minister on the health of the standards system.
It will be chaired by Doug Chalmers, a retired lieutenant general who chairs the current Standards Committee.
The committee was set up in 1994 by Sir John Major, then prime minister, after his government was mired in accusations of 'sleaze' following a series of parliamentary scandals.
Sir John warned in a recent speech that a small group of politicians were increasingly breaking the rules, and suggested Acoba needed to be reformed.
Ministers have instead decided to scrap it and split its functions between the Civil Service Commission and the Prime Minister's Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards.
Under reforms to the business appointments rules, former ministers found to have breached them by taking on inappropriate jobs will now be asked to repay any severance pay they receive.