KEIR Starmer’s chief of staff Sue Gray is reportedly paid more than the Prime Minister himself – as a bitter war of words breaks out over salaries at the top of government.
Gray asked for and received a pay bump after Labour’s election victory which took her salary to £170,000 – £3000 more than the Prime Minister, any Cabinet minister, or her Conservative predecessor, the BBC reports.
A source told the broadcaster: “It was suggested that she might want to go for a few thousand pounds less than the Prime Minister to avoid this very story. She declined.”
The BBC reports her salary has ignited a row within the Government, with other senior members of staff complaining they are being underpaid.
Some officials who worked for Labour before the election are said to have expected pay bumps when the party came to power but are now being paid less.
One told the BBC: “I’m working harder than ever in a more important job and they want to pay me less than the Labour Party was paying me when it was broke.”
Gray, a former senior civil servant, authored the report into Downing Street lockdown parties which contributed to the downfall of former prime minister Boris Johnson.
Her predecessor Liam Booth Smith, who worked under Rishi Sunak, was paid between £140,000 and £145,000.
There is severe unhappiness with Gray’s position at the top of government among some insiders, who view her as acting as the unofficial “deputy prime minister”.
One said: “It speaks to the dysfunctional way No10 is being run – no political judgement, an increasingly grand Sue who considers herself to be the deputy prime minister, hence the salary and no other voice for the Prime Minister to hear as everything gets run through Sue.”
Starmer earns a salary of £166,786.
The BBC reports that special advisers worked for weeks without being offered a proposed employment contract, meaning by the time they found out what they would be paid they had little choice but to accept.
Gray (below) has also been blamed for the delay in formal contracts being offered.
One source said: “If you ever see any evidence of our preparations for government, please let me know.”
Gray, who previously held the role of permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office, was tasked with overseeing Labour’s preparations for government when she was poached from the civil service in 2023.
There are also concerns about the length of time it took Starmer to make ministerial appointments after the election if preparations had been ongoing long before Labour came to power.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson told the BBC: “It is false to suggest that political appointees have made any decisions on their own pay bands or determining their own pay.
"Any decision on special adviser pay is made by officials not political appointees. As set out publicly, special advisers cannot authorise expenditure of public funds or have responsibility for budgets.”
