The Wardman Wire

Ministers, including Patricia Hewitt the ex-Health Minister, who leave office are entitled to a parachute payment of 3 months salary when ceasing to hold office:

Ministers Severance Payments.
Generally, 3 months of annual ministerial salary is payable when a minister ceases to hold office. Full details are set out in section 4 of the Ministerial and other Pensions and Salaries Act 1991 [PGA 1991 chapter 5], as amended.

A Cabinet Minister’s salary is currently just under £140,000, so that severance payment is around £35k.

Quite why any Minister – never mind one who has proven to be an incompetent dolt in office – should pocket that sort of money while still taking an MP’s salary of £60,675 is beyond my ken.

Patricia Hewitt is also entitled to all the other MP’s perks – including the £22,000 “Additional Costs Allowance” a year available to nearly all MPs for accommodation which many use to buy flats in Central London. These flats – purchased using taxpayers’ money – are not returned to the taxpayer when the MP leaves Parliament.

And bear in mind that Ministers who keep getting sacked (David Blunkett for one) have had this allowance more than once. It apparently doesn’t matter if you are at fault for your own sacking. Very lucrative.

Thsi is another steaming pile of manure that need to be shovelled out of the stables by “Capability” Brown when he does his Hercules act.

I’d suggest that it would be more appropriate for Patricia Hewitt to pay £40k back to the NHS for mitigate her “achievements”.

£40k constitutes approximately 0.0025% of the annual £300m (estd) that is the cost of the contract Patricia Hewitt negotiated to take GPs from being merely very, very, very highly paid to being hugely, astonishingly, highly paid.

At the same time, there are regular stories where money is somehow not available to pay for drugs to keep patients alive.

I wonder where the money went?

Tags: doctor, patricia hewitt mp, cabinet reshuffle, gordon brown, nhs, national health service, cabinet minister salary, mp perks, additional expenses allowance, member of parliament, patsy, tony blair[tags]doctor, patricia hewitt mp, cabinet reshuffle, gordon brown, nhs, national health service, cabinet minister salary, mp perks, additional expenses allowance, member of parliament, patsy, tony blair[/tags]