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UK taxpayer footed £15,000 bill in science secretary’s extremism libel case

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UK taxpayers funded a £15,000 settlement in the libel case brought by a university academic falsely accused by science secretary Michelle Donelan of supporting or sympathising with Hamas, the government said on Wednesday. 

The payment to Professor Kate Sang followed “established precedent under multiple administrations” that ministers received legal support in matters related to their official duties, the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology said.

Donelan on Tuesday withdrew her Hamas allegations against Sang, as well as unsubstantiated claims that Sang and fellow academic Kamna Patel had disseminated extremist views.

The case has triggered criticism over Donelan’s remarks and wider concerns that the government is trying to curb speech among scientists.

It has raised further questions over why Donelan received taxpayer funding over comments that only became public because she posted them on her private account on X.  

Peter Kyle, Labour’s shadow science secretary, said it was “outrageous that £15,000 of taxpayers money has been spent on the science secretary calling a scientist a terrorist sympathiser on social media, without any evidence at all”.

“Michelle Donelan should be embarrassed, she should apologise, and she should repay the full amount back to the taxpayer,” he added.  

Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK.

The £15,000 figure includes legal costs as well as the payment to settle the case, people familiar with the matter said. DSIT said its approach was “intended to reduce the overall costs to the taxpayer that could result from protracted legal action”, but it did not address why Donelan declined to retract her claims sooner. 

Responding to chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s spring Budget on Wednesday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer cited the settlement paid on behalf of Donelan as an example of disorder and decline in government.

“Taxpayers are picking up the bill for the science minister’s libel,” he said, as another Labour MP shouted “taxpayers’ money on libel — outrageous”.

Daisy Cooper, Liberal Democrat deputy leader, said that “if Michelle Donelan had a shred of integrity left, she would pay for this bill out of her own pocket instead of asking taxpayers to pick up the tab”. “If she refuses to do so, Rishi Sunak should dock her pay,” she added.

Donelan had attacked Sang and Patel in a letter written in her capacity as secretary of state to UKRI’s chief executive Dame Ottoline Leyser.

Sang and Patel are both members of an expert advisory group on equality, diversity and inclusion at Research England, which is part of the UK Research and Innovation funding body. In the letter, which Donelan published on her X account and has now taken down, she called for the equality advisory group to be shut down. 

A UKRI probe published this week found no evidence of any wrongdoing by Sang or Patel. 

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