Jacob Rees-Mogg handed thousands in severance pay for weeks as business secretary

Jacob Rees-Mogg was entitled to the payout on leaving the government when Liz Truss quit as prime minister

Jacob Rees-Mogg trousered £16,800 in severance pay for his seven-week stint as business secretary, it has been revealed.

The former minister, now being paid more than £750 an hour as a GB News presenter, was entitled to the payout on leaving the government when Liz Truss quit as prime minister.

Mr Rees-Mogg had previously championed plans to cut the amount paid to departing civil servants by a quarter. A consultancy document produced during his time as government efficiency minister, unearthed by the Mirror, said changes to redundancy pay would “create significant savings on the current cost of exits”.

New documents also reveal Tory chairman Greg Hands pocketed £7,920 when he was sacked as a minister in the business department, having served for less than a year.

A month later - one week after the cut-off for ministers having to hand back severance payments - Mr Hands was handed a new government job in the trade department.

A Labour source told the Mirror: “It is hard to know who is the bigger hypocrite for accepting these handouts: Jacob Rees-Mogg, who said the severance pay of civil servants was too generous; or Greg Hands, who is constantly preaching that the Tories are the party of sound money.

“They are both as bad as each other, and they deserve a permanent redundancy notice from the British people.”

The new figures come just months after it emerged ministers and special advisers were handed £2.9m in severance payments during the upheaval of Boris Johnson’s premiership.

The dying days of Mr Johnson’s government, and Ms Truss’s chaotic 49-day stint in Downing Street, saw a raft of resignations and sackings, with the turmoil creating a significant bill for the Government.

An annual report on special advisers showed the taxpayer stumped up £2.9m in severance payouts for the staffers.

Meanwhile many former ministers collected thousands of pounds in severance payouts after losing their government jobs.

Ms Truss and Mr Johnson were given nearly £20,000 each, despite the former being in office for just 49 days.