By Venkata Vemuri

London, Jun 7 (IANS): In Britain, ministers are paid compensation even if they are booted out of office - over a 100 former Labour ministers have been named to receive a total of 1.2 million pounds in redundancy payments.

Topping the list is ex-attorney general Baroness Scotland, entitled to 27,815 pounds. She is the one who got caught in a row over employing an illegal immigrant as her cleaner. Lord Peter Mandelson, the former business secretary, gets the second-highest payment despite being twice forced to resign from the cabinet over scandals. He will receive 26,589 pounds - equivalent to the average annual pay in Britain.

Gordon Brown will get 22,000 pounds. His final package is yet to be decided because, as a former prime minister, he is technically entitled to a more ­generous scheme of an annual 'pension' worth half his 88,000 pounds government salary.

Even the most junior ministers stand to get more than 7,700 pounds under the government redundancy system, introduced 20 years ago on the advice of the independent Top Salaries Review Body, giving ex-ministers a quarter of their ministerial salary in a tax-free payment when they leave office.

The justification is that former ministers are not allowed to take any pay outside work for three months after they leave office.

Protesting the payments, the Taxpayers' Alliance campaign group called for all former Labour ministers to waive their right to the cash.

A spokesperson told the Daily Mail: "These pay-offs are a huge bill for taxpayers to foot at a time when the public are having to tighten their belts so much."

During Labour rule, cabinet ministers netted over 78,000 pounds a year, the ministers' salary was made up of their MPs' salary of nearly 62,000 pounds each and an additional amount for their government job.

Junior ministers earned just over 30,000 pounds. Ministers who are members of the House of Lords, who get no salary as peers, are compensated with higher government salaries with cabinet ministers in the Upper House averaging around 106,000 pounds a year.