Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the cost to the public purse has been of Ministerial severance pay in her 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 at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ministerial-salary-data