Golden goodbyes ‘worth £10.4m’
By politics.co.uk staff
MPs who left parliament at the last election were entitled to claim a total of £10.4 million in resettlement grants, according to the TaxPayers’ Alliance.
The general election saw 218 MPs either lose their seat or stand down voluntarily, the highest number since the Second World War.
All MPs aged under 70 are entitled to receive a year’s full salary, worth over £64,000. It has not yet been established how much money was actually paid out in resettlement grants.
“It is not redundancy pay, they take the job on a five-year fixed contract and need to be aware it is fixed term,” John O’Connell told BBC Radio 4’s File on 4 programme.
“These are huge sums.”
Not all MPs received the resettlement grant, however. The three MPs standing trial for expenses-related charges have seen their grants suspended, while Labour’s Harry Cohen had his removed after an investigation into his expenses claims.
