In an urgent question, Labour’s Fleur Anderson asked for a statement from the government on ministerial severance payments following the high number of resignations taking place in the previous week.

Cabinet office under-secretary Heather Wheeler confirmed that three months pay as a severance payment has been in place since legislation was passed “by parliament in 1991”.

However, Anderson pushed for a different outcome on the basis that departures were “caused by a discredited prime minister and a Conservative Party unwilling to deal with it”.