Nadine Dorries given £16,876 of taxpayers' money 'by mistake' in Tory blunder

26 January 2024 , 12:59

982     0

Nadine Dorries should not have received a pay-off as she's over 65 (Image: PA Wire)

Nadine Dorries was mistakenly handed a golden goodbye worth more than £16,000 when she stepped down as Culture Secretary.

The former Tory MP received the generous severance payment even though she was not entitled to the cash as she was over 65. Government accounts show Ms Dorries got a £16,876 pay-off in September 2022 when she left her Cabinet job as Boris Johnson stepped down as PM. At the time she was 65.

Departing ministers get a payment equivalent to three months’ wages, but the Ministerial and other Pensions and Salaries Act 1991 states they are only entitled to the cash if they under the age of 65. The latest blunder emerged after the Mirror revealed earlier this week that flasher ex-MP Peter Bone had wrongly been paid almost £5,600 after he spent just 82 days as Deputy Commons Leader under Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. He was 69 at the time.

Baroness Stedman-Scott and Sir David Evennett also received generous severance packages when they left their Government roles despite being over the age of 65. Baroness Stedman-Scott, who was 67, got £17,442 when she stood down as a Department of Work and Pensions minister in 2022. Sir David got £4,479 when he left his post as a Government whip in October 2022 even though he was 73. The wrongful payment to Ms Dorries was first reported by The Times.

Figures show a total of £933,086 in taxpayers’ money was handed out in pay-offs in one year as the changes in PM from Mr Johnson to Ms Truss and then Rishi Sunak led to an unprecedented turnover in ministers.

Teachers, civil servants and train drivers walk out in biggest strike in decade

The Mirror reported earlier this week that Ms Dorries’s Friday night talk show has been axed after less than a year on air. Her weekly programme will not be returning to screens, after being absent from the schedules since before Christmas. Ms Dorries is in discussions with the struggling television channel about whether she will continue to have a role.

“We are just in talks about a new contract,” she told the Mirror. Asked whether she will have her own show, she said she could not say. Ms Dorries insisted her Friday night show had not been a flop. She said: “The programme did great actually… so I live in the Cotswolds and a year of standing on Paddington Station at 7 o’clock at night to go home isn’t what I want to do.”

The ex-MP first appeared on Talk TV as a guest presenter in October 2022 when she struggled to read from the autocue. Despite her on-air stumble, she was handed her own weekly Friday night show at the beginning of February last year.

John Stevens