Michelle Donelan under pressure to repay £15,000 as PM stands by her
Michelle Donelan is under increasing pressure to pay back £15,000 in compensation footed by the taxpayer for a libel case against her, as the Prime Minister insisted he still has confidence in the Cabinet minister.
Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday it was “totally insulting” that the British public has been forced to cover damages and legal costs for an academic after the Science Secretary falsely accused her of supporting Hamas.
i revealed on Tuesday the taxpayer covered a settlement to Professor Kate Sang, an academic at Heriot-Watt University, after Donelan wrongly alleged that she had shared “extremist” views on social media.
The Labour leader said on Thursday: “The Government is telling [the public] every day that they can’t do any more to help them. People are really struggling to pay their bills, and the Government says ‘We can’t afford to help you anymore.’
“And then you’ve got a minister who says something she shouldn’t have said, then has to pick up a legal action and pay damages and costs, and then says ‘The taxpayer is going to pay for that’. Totally insulting.”
Penny Mordaunt, the Leader of the House of Commons, defended Donelan on Thursday and insisted she had demonstrated her “character” after turning down a redundancy payment.
The Science Secretary had been entitled to a payout of almost £17,000 after resigning from her previous role as education secretary in 2022, which she held for just 36 hours.
Donelan, who quit her post during a flurry of resignations hours before Boris Johnson’s decision to step down as prime minister, had faced significant public pressure to refuse the money.
Mordaunt told the Commons on Thursday: “I would remind this House that when the honourable lady was entitled to redundancy payment from being a Secretary of State, which was [over] £16,000, she did not take that and handed it back to the department because it was the right thing to do.
“So I would just remind people of that, and that speaks volumes about the honourable lady’s character and how much she values taxpayer’s money that we are talking about.”
Rishi Sunak also stood by Donelan on Thursday, with No 10 insisting she had withdrawn her false allegations and “fully accepted that the individual in question is not an extremist”.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said Donelan followed “established precedent” in authorising the Government to pay the damages on her behalf given that she made the false allegations in her ministerial capacity.
It came as No 10 confirmed Donelan received legal advice from Government lawyers before drawing up a letter attacking two academics that sparked the libel case.
In a letter to the head of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) in October, the Science Secretary accused two academics on an advisory group of the national funding research body of supporting Hamas and called for them to be suspended.
The letter, which Donelan shared on X, had misinterpreted posts shared by the academics commenting on the Israel-Hamas war. UKRI cleared them of any wrongdoing on Tuesday following an independent investigation and invited them to resume their roles.
The PM’s spokesman said Donelan received legal advice ahead of sending the letter to Ottoline Leyser, the chief executive of UKRI, but refused to say whether Government lawyers had approved her to share it publicly on social media.
The Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT), also refused to comment when asked by i whether Government lawyers gave the green light to share the letter to her 38,000 followers on X, which resulted in the libel case.
It comes as the Government faces growing questions over who knew about Donelan’s letter, which was sent on Government-stamped letterhead paper, ahead of its publication.
The University and College Union (UCU), which represents the two academics, has called on Donelan to resign.
Jo Grady, general secretary of the UCU, said she had been “forced to conclude that Donelan’s position is untenable”.
“He does not retain the confidence of the academic community, nor is she upholding good standards of professional conduct. She must resign,” Grady said.
Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, said on Thursday that he did not personally authorise the £15,000 payment to be footed by the taxpayer.
“I don’t think I did because the Chancellor only approves much larger sums of money, but it is normal practice that Government lawyers support Government ministers in legal cases that are brought against Government ministers in the course of their duties,” he told the BBC.
A Government spokesperson said: “There is an established precedent under multiple administrations that Ministers are provided with legal support and representation where matters relate to their conduct and responsibilities as a Minister, as was the case here.
“The Secretary of State received the appropriate advice from relevant officials at all times.
“A sum of £15,000 was paid without admitting any liability. This approach is intended to reduce the overall costs to the taxpayer that could result from protracted legal action, no matter what the result would have been.”
