Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the cost to the public purse has been of Ministerial severance pay in his Department in each year since 1 January 2016.

• Under the Ministerial and Other Pensions and Salaries Act 1991, eligible Ministers who leave office are entitled to a one-off payment equivalent to one quarter of their annual salary at the point at which they leave Government.
• This applies only where a Minister is under 65 and is not appointed to a ministerial office within three weeks of leaving government.
• Individuals may waive the payment to which they are entitled. That is a matter for their personal discretion, but this approach has been taken in the past.
• Details of such payments are published in departmental annual reports and accounts, and ministerial salaries are published on GOV.UK here.