Liz Truss can still get a six-figure-a-year payout, even after quitting PM job

Liz Truss is still eligible to claim a six-figure yearly allowance from British taxpayers – despite her brief stint as prime minister.

The embattled politician resigned as the UK’s most powerful leader Thursday morning after a fiscal fiasco felled her tumultuous 44-day tenure.

But even as the shortest-serving prime minister in British history, she is entitled to the Public Duty Costs Allowance, which assists former prime ministers who remain active in public life.

Worth up to £115,000 ($129,196.75) – or three times the national average income – the PCDA will allow Truss to file offset correspondence, office and public speaking costs related to her former role. 

“The allowance is not paid to support private or parliamentary duties,” the Cabinet Office states.

Truss will likely receive these funds in addition to her salary as a sitting MP. If she is not reelected to her position representing South West Norfolk, she is still entitled to the PCDA.

Introduced by Prime Minister John Major following Margaret Thatcher’s resignation in 1991, the PCDA has reportedly paid out millions to former PMs over the years. According to the LBC, Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron all claimed over £100,000 in 2020-21 alone.

PMs are eligible for the PCDA as long as they remain in public life, though the terms of this arrangement are apparently loosely understood. A report by The Guardian in 2011 revealed that the then-ailing Baroness Thatcher received £535,000 in taxpayer money over the previous five years.

Members of the public are now agitating for Truss to be excluded from the taxpayer goldmine, with some calling for her to voluntarily forgo the funding.

“[The PCDA] should be performance related. This would leave her owing the taxpayer…” one Twitter user snarked.

Another noted the irony of Truss’s PCDA being “paid for by the taxpayer, all of whom have been impacted by her mini-budget.”

“Liz Truss said in her leadership campaign that she didn’t believe in ‘handouts’ so I assume she will be refusing,” a third chimed in, followed by the hashtag “#ToriesOutForever.”

Outcry over Truss’s cushy fiscal future comes as the former PM also endures heckles about her short time at Downing Street. Almost immediately after she resigned, a Tesco market announced that her tenure was outlived by a head of lettuce designated specifically for that purpose.