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Wow. Penny Mordaunt suggests the public should be grateful for Michelle Donelan as she didn't take a £16,000 redundancy payout she was entitled to after resigning as Education Secretary after…. two days
She suggests this wipes out the £15,000 the taxpayer paid for Donelan pic.twitter.com/KIM4ql1LeS
— Poppy Wood (@poppyeh) March 7, 2024
Penny Mordaunt left people stunned as she tried to defend her under-fire cabinet colleague Michelle Donelan.
The science secretary has has faced calls to resign after it emerged taxpayers had to pay £15,000 in damages after she wrongly accused an academic of supporting Hamas.
Commons leader Mordaunt used a bizarre defence today as Donelan came under fire from MPs.
She praised her colleague for refusing to accept the redundancy payment she was entitled to in 2022 when she was education secretary for just two days during the downfall of Boris Johnson.
Mordaunt said: “When [Donelan] was entitled to redundancy payments from being secretary of state, which was £16,000, she did not take that and handed it back to the department because it was the right thing to do.
“I would just remind people of that. I think that speaks volumes about the honourable lady’s character and how much she values the fact that it is taxpayers’ money that we are talking about.”
Her comments drew criticism from X users.
Excuses we’ve now had from govt ministers about taxpayers paying £15k damages for the Science Secretary wrong claims get more elaborate.
.@PennyMordaunt‘s today was a bizarre one – we should be grateful she didn’t take £16k redundancy for being in a job for 3 days!
Questions… pic.twitter.com/8Ct5tEjEII
— Lucy Powell MP (@LucyMPowell) March 7, 2024
Wow. Did Penny Mordaunt really just suggest we should all be grateful to Michelle Donelan for not taking redundancy pay for her *checks notes* 24 hours as Education Secretary? Apparently that's a mark of her great character 🤔.
— Munira Wilson MP 🇺🇦 (@munirawilson) March 7, 2024
Can they really not hear themselves? Penny Mordaunt’s ludicrous assertion that the public should be “grateful” to Michelle Donelan shows just how completely out of touch the Tories really are. https://t.co/ws7hfigdFH
— Liz Jarvis (@LizJarvisUK) March 7, 2024
Commendably creative defence of Michelle Donelan for running up a £15,000 taxpayer-funded libel* bill from Penny Mordaunt – Donelan's decision to decline redundancy pay after serving about 36 hours as education secretary "speaks volumes about her character". pic.twitter.com/FohtHpDBKJ
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) March 7, 2024
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