The cost of the multiple resignations that eventually forced Boris Johnson to stand down as Prime Minister is set to cost the tax payer up to £250,000.
More than 50 MPs quit ministerial and party roles this week and they are all entitled to a golden handshake of three months' salary.
Cabinet ministers get paid an extra £67,505 a year on top of their £84,000 salary for being an MP, meaning the likes of Sajid Javid, Rishi Sunak and Michelle Donelan – who was education secretary for just 36 hours - will receive almost £17,000 for resigning.
Ms Donelan said on Twitter that she had asked if there was a way to prevent the money reaching her but had not yet received a reply, as well as pledging to give any payout she receives to a local charity.
The £16,876.25 payment ministers were set to receive was part of a bumper total of between £200,000 and £250,000 of severance cash thought to be owed by taxpayers to Tory ministers who joined the rebellion to oust the PM.
The three-month payment comes under the Ministerial and other Pensions and Salaries Act 1991, which states MPs leaving office are entitled to a quarter of their annual ministerial salary in severance.
Ms Donelan said on Twitter: “If this is the case I shall be donating it in full to a local charity.”
Liberal Democrat chief whip Wendy Chamberlain said in quotes reported by the Daily Mail: “Conservative MPs spent months defending Boris Johnson and failed to get rid of him when they had the chance.
“Now Conservative infighting and sheer incompetence has cost the taxpayer yet more money during this cost of living crisis.
“Conservative ministers who resigned should do the decent thing and pass up their payoffs for the good of the country.”
In the Commons, Labour's Rupa Huq asked Cabinet Office minister Michael Ellis: “Can he confirm they will be forfeiting their right to this, because we do not reward failure?”
Mr Ellis responded: “The matter she refers to is set in statute so it's a matter for the law, and that law would have been passed by this House.”
This story was amended post-publication after it emerged that the initially reported figure of £423,000 owed to ministers in severance pay had been over-estimated
