Suella Braverman Was Handed £16.8k Of Taxpayers’ Money When She Was Sacked By Rishi Sunak

Suella Braverman was paid £16,876 of taxpayers’ money when she was sacked as the home secretary under Rishi Sunak last November, new accounts reveal.

The former cabinet minister now sits as a backbencher in the Commons, but had served on the Tory frontline until she was fired for writing an article in The Times slamming the police.

She made a series of inflammatory remarks ahead of some London protests, claiming the police were guilty of having a left-wing bias, and hitting out at “pro-Palestinian mobs” ahead of a wave of right-wing violence in Whitehall.

Downing Street soon revealed she did not get the text cleared with No.10 before publication, suggesting a split between the PM and his then-home secretary.

She was promptly sacked, triggering a major cabinet reshuffle days later.

But, the Home Office published the annual report and accounts for 2023 to 2024 today, and revealed Braverman received the generous “non-taxable exit payment” at the end of last year.

That was the second time Braverman had to resign as home secretary; she was fired by Liz Truss after she breached the ministerial code by sharing an official document from her personal email address with a parliamentary colleague.

She was reappointed six days later when Sunak was in No.10, after the new PM said she had “accepted her mistake”.

A Labour source told HuffPost UK: “The fact that Suella Braverman was able to walk away with a tax-free payout of this size after being sacked for the second time in a year demonstrates how the ministerial severance system was brought into disrepute by the last Tory government, and why it will need to change under Labour.”

Braverman was expected to try and run to be the next Tory leader after Sunak announced he would be stepping down following their historic election defeat.

However, she announced she was withdrawing from it – even though she supposedly had the 10 MPs required to to enter the contest – because the “traumatised” party did not want to listen to her take on why it failed.

Many supporters expected to back her reportedly switched to fellow right-wing Tory Robert Jenrick after the election.

Robert Jenrick is standing to be the next Tory leader
Robert Jenrick is standing to be the next Tory leader

via Associated Press

Jenrick, the former immigration minister under Sunak, resigned from the government last December – but he also received a generous tax-free pay-out, according to the Home Office accounts.

He was handed £7,920 when he quit the front bench over the Rwanda deportation bill, claiming it did not go fair enough.

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Tories Planned To Spent £10bn On Rwanda Scheme, Yvette Cooper Claims

The home secretary has claimed the Tories intended on spending £10 billion on the now-scrapped Rwanda deportation scheme.

In the Commons on Monday, Yvette Cooper said the full expense of the plan to send asylum seekers who arrive to the UK in small boats to Rwanda was not fully disclosed to parliament.

The policy, which Labour dropped when it got into power earlier this month, has already cost the British taxpayer £700m over the last two and a half years, according to Cooper.

Cooper continued: “Those costs include £290m payments to Rwanda, chartering flights that never took off, detaining hundreds of people and then releasing them, and paying for more 1,000 civil servants to work on the scheme.

“A scheme which sent four people. It is the most shocking waste of taxpayer money I have ever seen.”

Cooper also said if the scheme had ever “got going” it would only cover a “minority” of arrivals and the taxpayer would still have to pay out “no matter how many people were relocated”.

The cabinet minister added: “Over the six years of the migration and economic development partnership forecast, the previous government had planned to spend over £10bn of taxpayers money on the scheme – they did not tell parliament that.”

Cooper dubbed it a “costly con” which has been paid for by the taxpayer.

Even before Labour were elected, the Rwanda scheme was blocked repeatedly with legal challenges which stopped any flights with forced deportations from ever getting off the ground.

The Conservatives ended up suggesting the UK leave the European Convention on Human Rights to prevent European judges blocking any flights.

But on Monday, new PM Keir Starmer said: “Let me be clear, there is no need to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.”

A “hear, hear” rang out around the chamber at that.

Starmer continued: “That is not consistent with the values with that blood bond, so we won’t withdraw – not now, not ever.

“Because, Mr Speaker, the basic fact of the priorities of the British people do require us to work across borders with our partners.

“And a government of service at home requires a government of strength abroad.

“That is our role, it’s always been our role – Britain belongs on the world stage.”

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Keir Starmer: \"Let me be clear, there is no need to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights… not now, not ever… Britain belongs on the world stage.\" pic.twitter.com/58lWXA6Pmr

— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) July 22, 2024

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Keir Starmer: “Let me be clear, there is no need to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights… not now, not ever… Britain belongs on the world stage.” pic.twitter.com/58lWXA6Pmr

— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) July 22, 2024

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