Its not just Sue Gray: Meet the Whitehall fat cats who ALL earn more than Keir Starmer - including HS2 boss who took home more than £650,000 - amid row over £170k salary for PMs top No10 adviser
Labour is on the defensive today amid a bitter Downing Street row over the pay packet for Keir Starmers top aide Sue Grey - who earns more than the PM.
Labour is on the defensive today amid a bitter Downing Street row over the pay packet for Keir Starmers top aide Sue Grey - who earns more than the PM.
Sir Keirs controversial chief of staff faced a backlash from senior officials after leaked details of her salary revealed her pay has been boosted to £170,000.
Her pay rise comes at a time when ministers claim that money is so tight they have been forced to scrap the winter fuel payment for ten million pensioners.
But she is not the only official in Westminster and Whitehall to be paid more than the Prime Ministers £167,000 salary.
Analysis of publicly available salary information reveals eight Civil Service permanent secretaries are paid more, as is Sir Chris Whitty, who earns more than £200,000 as chief medical officer.
But their pay is nothing compared to the highest paid official: Mark Thurston, the chief executive of HS2 Ltd, whose salary was in a band between £640,000 and £649,000 in 2022, the most recent year for which figures are available.
That was an increase of around £20,000 on the previous year and his total pay packet was £675,000. He has since announced he is quitting his role leading the beleaguered project.
Network Rail staff accounted for four out of the top 10 earners, with CEO Andrew Haines in second on up to £590,000.
In total more than 370 officials out of 664 high-earners had a pay band ceiling higher than the Prime ministers salary in 2022.
They include Sir Matthew Rycroft, the permanent secretary at the Home Office during the Channel boats crisis, and Sarah Healey, his counterpart and the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, who boasted of riding her Peloton exercise bike while working from home during the pandemic.
However there are also questions over government transparency as more recent salary details for 2023 were expected to be released at the start of this year and have yet to be published. It is understood there is no firm date set yet for their release.
Sir Keir s controversial chief of staff faced a backlash from senior officials after leaked details of her salary revealed her pay has been boosted to £170,000.
But she is not the only official in Westminster and Whitehall to be paid more than the Prime Ministers £167,000 salary.
Mark Thurston, the chief executive of HS2 Ltd, whose salary was in a band between £640,000 and £649,000 in 2022, the most recent year for which figures are available.
Those earning more than the PM included Francis Atherton, the chief medical officer for Wales (£204,999) and his deputy Chris Jones (£169,999), and JP Marks, the permanent secretary to the Scottish Government (£169,999).
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the Chief of the Defence Staff and professional head of the Armed Forces, was on £274,999, while Richard Deverell, the director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, was on £174,000.
Sir Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service whose role attracted criticism under the previous Tory government, earned £204,999.
Sir Stephen Lovegrove, the National Security Adviser, was on a package worth £199,999.
Disclosures that Ms Gray received a pay rise after the election which means she earns more than Sir Keir have sparked a row within Government and prompted opposition critics to demand answers about how the decision was made.
The Business Secretary today insisted ministers have no political input in the pay of their advisers.
Jonathan Reynolds said there was a long-standing process for determining earnings for aides and dismissed suggestions that the Prime Minister had personally intervened to increase Sue Grays pay.
Mr Reynolds told Sky News: I think its important people understand that the pay bands for any official, any adviser, are not set by politicians. Theres an official process that does that.
I dont, for instance, get to set the pay for my own advisers who work directly for me. So theres a process, we dont have political input into that.
The appointment of Ms Gray, a former senior civil servant whose report into lockdown-era parties within Downing Street contributed to the downfall of then-prime minister Boris Johnson, to Sir Keirs team has been controversial.
In total more than 370 officials had a pay band ceiling higher than the Prime ministers salary in 2022. They include Sir Matthew Rycroft, the permanent secretary at the Home Office during the Channel boats crisis.
Network Rail staff accounted for four out of the top 10 earners, with CEO Andrew Haines in second on up to £590,000.
Jonathan Reynolds said there was a long-standing process for determining earnings for aides and dismissed suggestions that the Prime Minister had personally intervened to increase Sue Grays pay.
The BBC report on her pay is the latest of a number of negative stories about the aide, and comes amid suggestions of mounting acrimony at the heart of the new Government over her earnings.
Her predecessor in the Downing Street chief of staff role, Tory Liam Booth-Smith, was paid a salary of up to £140,000 until the Tories lost the election. He was subsequently made a peer in the House of Lords.
Downing Street denied this week that there was a nest of vipers behind the scenes in Sir Keirs administration after reports of tensions involving senior officials, including between Ms Gray and director of political strategy Morgan McSweeney.
Over the weekend, Sir Keir sought to play down the rumours about Ms Gray, saying: Im not going to talk behind her back and Im not going to talk about individual members of staff, whether its Sue Gray or any other member of staff.
Sue Grays predecessor in the Downing Street chief of staff role, Tory Liam Booth-Smith, was paid a salary of up to £140,000 until the Tories lost the election. He was subsequently made a peer in the House of Lords.
All I can say about the stories is most of them are wildly wrong.
The BBC said a number of Whitehall sources had briefed the organisation. Sir Keir signed off a rebanding of the salaries for special advisers shortly after taking office in July, according to the BBC.
Ms Gray was reported to earn around £150,000 when she worked for Labour in opposition.
She is also eligible for a £90,000-a-year gold-plated pension from a £1.8million retirement pot accrued during her years as a neutral civil servant.
One Labour insider joked that the 67-year-old had now become the only pensioner better off under Labour.
And a Conservative spokesman said: Its one rule for Labour and their trade union paymasters, another for everyone else.
No wonder Labour has shown no restraint in axing winter fuel payments for suffering pensioners, as Keir Starmer and his top apparatchik have gold-plated pensions at taxpayers expense.
Starmer must come clean on how much taxpayers are being billed for Labours pensions, while he snatches away support for the vulnerable.
Downing Street did not deny reports last night that Ms Gray rejected advice to keep her salary below the Prime Ministers to avoid controversy.
Details of her salary were leaked to the BBC.
One 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 revelation is the latest in a series of damaging leaks about Ms Gray who is said to have made enemies across Whitehall.
One senior official told the Mail: It is open season on her – she is losing her authority fast and it already looks like her departure is inevitable.
Details of her pay caused anger among other Labour advisers who are already in talks to form a trade union after having their pay cut on joining government.
One said she was already unpopular, adding: This just makes it worse – it is staggering.
Another Whitehall source said: They wanted to keep the overall pay bill down below the level of the last government, so other salaries have had to be squeezed to accommodate hers.
In a post on social media, Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick said: £20,000-a-year pay rise for Sue Gray. £600 cuts for some pensioners on as little as £13,000 a year. Starmers hypocrisy reeks.
Former Tory minister Nigel Huddleston said the bumper pay rise suggested that Ms Gray was the real power behind the throne in Downing Street.
He added: Its an important principle of management that the boss – the one calling the shots and making the big decisions – should get paid the most.
But Health Secretary Wes Streeting played down the matter last night, saying the Government was lucky to have Sue Gray.
The row is another self-inflicted controversy for Sir Keir, whose preparations for his first Labour Party conference as Prime Minister this weekend have already been rocked by controversy over his decision to accept clothes worth thousands of pounds for himself and his wife, Victoria, from Labour donor Lord Alli, who was handed a rare No10 pass after the election.
Ms Gray came to prominence when she was put in charge of the controversial Partygate investigation into Boris Johnson, which helped to trigger his downfall.
She stunned civil service colleagues the following year when she quit her high-powered role at the heart of government to join Labour as chief of staff to the leader of the opposition.
As Downing Street chief of staff, Ms Gray sits on No10s pay board, which sets salaries for advisers.
Her £170,000 pay packet is the highest ever awarded to a special adviser and follows a decision to lift the previous top pay band, which allowed advisers a maximum salary of £145,000.
A Cabinet Office spokesman insisted it was false to suggest that political appointees have made any decisions on their own pay bands or determining their own pay.
The spokesman added: Any decision on special adviser pay is made by officials, not political appointees.
But a former Tory government adviser described the claim as nonsense, adding: There are officials on the staff pay board, but in the end pay is decided by the chief of staff.
Sues decision to take a salary that is higher than the PMs just shows again that she has no political judgment.
Former Tory minister Nigel Huddleston (pictured) said the bumper pay rise suggested that Ms Gray was the real power behind the throne in Downing Street
Ms Gray is reported to be locked in a bitter power struggle with Sir Keirs election guru Morgan McSweeney, and is even said to have twice had his desk moved further away from the PMs.
She also reportedly has a difficult relationship with Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, who is expected to leave government at the end of this year.
Downing Street denied this week that there was a nest of vipers behind the scenes in Sir Keirs administration.
No10 also defended Mr Case over reports that he is suspected of being the source of leaks against Ms Gray.
However, allies of No10s beleaguered chief of staff have begun a frantic search to uncover the source of the leaks against her. Sir Keirs decision to sign off her pay rise leaves him open to allegations of hypocrisy.
In 2021 he publicly criticised a decision to increase the pay of Mr Johnsons own controversial chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, to £140,000, contrasting it unfavourably with a modest pay rise for nurses.
The decision will also reopen questions about the PMs dependence on his top aide. Ms Gray raised eyebrows last week when she accompanied him to the White House, where she was pictured with Joe Biden, prompting some to describe her as the real deputy prime minister.
She accompanied Sir Keir again on a trip to Rome for talks with Italian PM Giorgia Meloni.
One insider said: She wants to make sure the only voice he hears is hers.
A No10 spokeswoman said last night: We never comment on staff salaries.
