Furious Brits share anger over £115,000 Public Duty Costs Allowance for Truss - after just weeks as PM

20 October 2022, 14:31 | Updated: 21 October 2022, 06:35

Furious Brits have called for Liz Truss to forego the £115,000 annual allowance she is entitled to after serving as PM for just a matter of weeks.

Despite being the shortest serving PM in British history, with a government that tanked the economy, she will be able to claim £115,000 per year from the taxpayer for the rest of her life.

The Public Duties Cost Allowance (PDCA) lets former PMs claim back money towards the cost of maintaining their activities in public life.

Former PMs have claimed back millions through the scheme, but the public has angrily called for the allowance to be withheld from Liz Truss - or for her to voluntarily forego it.

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John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron all claimed more than £100,000 through the PDCA in 2020/21.

Costs can include “diary support, Met Police protection on public visits, correspondence, staffing at public visits, support to charitable work, social media platforms and managing and maintaining ex-PMs office”.

One angry member of the public said: “It’s about time this allowance they receive was stopped. Or a rule put in that they only get said allowance IF they serve a full term of no less than 4 years as a PM.”

Jonathan Berry posted online: “As our worst and, thankfully, shortest serving PM will you manage to do one good thing in your premiership and voluntarily forego the £115K p/a Public Duties Cost Allowance that you will be, I think we can all agree, undeservedly entitled to for the rest of your life?”

Another person asked Labour MP Chris Bryant: “Given her incredibly short "tenure" as PM, can you confirm if Liz Truss will be entitled to the post-PM annual allowance?? Doesn't seem entirely fair that she should qualify.”

She resigned today as UK prime minister and leader of the Conservative Party in a statement outside Downing Street, saying she could not deliver the mandate on which she was elected as Tory leader - and had notified the King that she was resigning.

A Conservative leadership election will be completed within the next week, she said.