Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng are pocketing thousands in redundancy pay for their few weeks in office

Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng are set to receive thousands in redundancy payments for the few weeks they were in office and Labour thinks it is "abhorrent".

All ministers are eligible for a redundancy payment after leaving office and former prime minister Truss will get £18,860, about £365 for each day she was in charge, while Kwarteng could get £16,876 for his 38-day tenure as chancellor.

Lest we forget, in that time they tanked the pound, made the markets terrified and overall didn't exactly do a great job. Basically, there is a reason their tenures were incredibly short.

With that in mind Labour will put forward a motion in the commons on Tuesday demanding the pair give at least £6,000 back. They say it would be unfair if they kept it while 2 million people struggle with mortgage costs and a third of people report their repayments have increased in the last six months.

The shadow levelling up, housing and communities secretary, Lisa Nandy, said in a statement ahead of the debate: “It is abhorrent that a prime minister and chancellor should be able to crash the economy, costing hard-working families hundreds of pounds a month in higher mortgage payments, and then pocket a severance payment worth thousands for themselves. Today the new prime minister, chancellor and Tory MPs can undo that disgrace.”

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Speaking to Sky News, she added: "They absolutely shouldn't take it."

"Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng should not be able to profit from the decisions that they made in office. They bet the house on people's security and we've seen as a consequence the economy was crashed, mortgage payments went through the roof and working people will be paying the price for many, many years to come".

"This is a chance for Rishi Sunak and the Tories to show whose side they are on," she added. Are they on the side of people who paid fast and loose with family finances or are they on the side of people who are going to pay the price of that for many, many years to come?"

Meanwhile, since the start of 2022 - aka the chaos era in British politics - 79 ministers have resigned or been sacked, and 71 qualify for the payments that are more than £10,000 each.

The culture secretary, Michelle Donelan, refused the payment for her 36 hours as education secretary under Boris Johnson over the summer, so at least someone is thinking about the taxpayer's purse.

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