MPS pass motion demanding Truss and Kwarteng lose £6,000 of severance pay

MPS backed a call for Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng to waive at least £6,000 of the golden goodbyes they are due for losing ministerial office.

Labour’s censure motion went through the Commons “on the nod” without a formal vote yesterday.

It followed shadow communities secretary Lisa Nandy telling MPS it was “obscene” that the former PM was entitled to a ministerial severance payment of almost £19,000, while her Chancellor was “set to rake in £17,000”.

Her motion called on the pair to forgo at least £6,000 each because of their “mismanagement of the economy while in office”, with the sum said to be equal to average yearly increase in mortgage costs.

Opposition day motions are not binding, and recent administrations prefer MPS to abstain on them.

But Labour said the Commons had not passed a similar censure motion since the 1970s, when such votes were considered binding.

Tory housing minister Lucy Frazer said it was not “appropriate” to make arbitrary demands of individuals in relation to their entitlements, which were entirely at their own discretion.

She said Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng “both served as ministers for a considerable amount of time before they were made prime minister and chancellor of the exchequer, and they therefore have a statutory entitlement”.

She also claimed it was “wholly inaccurate” to blame the minibudget for mortgage rate increases, leading to jeers and heckles from the opposite benches.

The debate also saw Paul Howell, the Tory MP for Sedgefield, forced to apologise to three female Labour MPS after he suggested they should “shut up” and listen to him.