Jacob Rees-Mogg and Tory Party chairman Greg Hands received severance payments from taxpayers' funds when they lost their ministerial positions. Rees-Mogg received £16,800 in severance pay for a job he held for just seven weeks, despite advocating for reduced redundancy payments for civil servants.
As Business Secretary, he proposed slashing civil service redundancy payouts from four weeks' salary per year of service to three. Greg Hands, who had served in the Business Department for less than a year, received a £7,920 payout when he was sacked in September 2022, only to be rehired as a trade minister four weeks later. Critics argue that both politicians are hypocritical for accepting these payments while advocating for fiscal responsibility.