Minister uses taxpayers money to pay for libel damages to scientist over Hamas claim

A cabinet minister has paid damages funded by taxpayer money to an academic after wrongly suggesting she had expressed sympathy for Hamas.

Michelle Donelan, the science secretary, apologised for her comments about Professor Kate Sang and agreed to pay her an undisclosed sum on Tuesday, saying there was “no evidence” that the academic was a Hamas supporter.

It is understood taxpayers covered the sum paid to Prof Sang and that it was handed over in an effort to reduce the costs that could result from protracted legal action

Labour’s shadow science secretary Peter Kyle said the secretary of state “must prove she still has confindence of the research community” and called her allegations “a new low in government standards”.

The Liberal Democrats called for an inquiry into what happened as well as “whether any rules wre broken and how much public money was spent”.

The minister had tweeted a letter she had written to UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) in October, expressing “disgust and outrage” that Prof Sang and another academic, Dr Kamna Patel, had “shared extremist views” and, in Prof Sang’s case, expressed sympathy for the terrorist group after the October 7 attacks in Israel.

The letter followed a tweet by Prof Sang saying “this is disturbing”, and containing a link to an article by the Guardian describing the response to the Hamas attacks in the UK, while Dr Patel had retweeted a post describing Israeli actions as “genocide and apartheid”.

Both academics had recently been appointed to UKRI’s advisory group on equality, diversity and inclusion.