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Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff Sue Gray is earning more than the prime minister after a post-election pay rise pushed her salary to £170,000, according to government officials.
Gray’s pay rise, first reported by the BBC on Wednesday, means she is now paid more than any cabinet minister or her predecessor in Downing Street.
The prime minister enjoys a salary of £166,786, while cabinet ministers are paid £158,851.
Gray’s Tory predecessor, Liam Booth-Smith, who has since been made a peer, was paid between £140,000 and £145,000, which was then the highest pay band for special advisers, when he worked for Rishi Sunak.
The revelation is the latest incident in which Gray, who was previously a senior civil servant, has been thrust into the public eye following anonymous briefings by the government, in a sign of growing discontent within the new administration just months after the his electoral victory. .
Details of his remuneration entering the public domain are also likely to exacerbate resentment among a number of other special labor advisers, who have complained privately about their own pay and contracts.
Gray asked for – and was granted – the salary she is now, the BBC reported.
The Cabinet Office said: “It is false to suggest that political appointees have made any decisions about their pay bands or determine their own pay.
“Any decision on the payment of special advisers is made by officials who are not political appointees. . . Special advisers cannot authorize the expenditure of public funds or have responsibility for budgets.”
The Tories slammed the “unprecedented” pay deal, and in a party statement put 10 questions to Starmer about the apparent changes to the higher pay band for special advisers.
This included demands to know whether the prime minister personally signed off on Gray’s new salary and the increase in the cap on the highest pay band, and whether Gray played a role in setting his salary or in determination of pay of special advisers.
The opposition party also pointed out that Georgia Gould, a Cabinet Office minister, refused to answer a parliamentary question from Tory MP and former paymaster-general John Glen this week about changes to the pay limits for special advisers.
Gould said the information will be published in an annual report.
The new government has already seen tensions between some special advisers over their work packages after the party won power in July.
A Labor insider said: “I’m surprised by the amount of resentment people feel. Many had their job security thrown at them during the election – and then they were unfairly pressured on pay.”
Not all political advisers who worked for Labor frontbenchers while the party was in opposition have been brought into government. Of those who were, some expected salary increases, but complained of having been “low” in salary.
A senior Whitehall figure warned that Gray appeared to be “dangerously exposed”, and said he needed to lower his profile in the public sphere or risk becoming an unsustainable distraction for the Starmer government.