Dispute over Sue Gray's £170,000 salary hits Starmer

Sir Keir Starmer's government has been hit by another leaks row after it was revealed that Sue Gray earns more than the Prime Minister, in what appears to be the latest attempt to attack the Chief of Staff.

Gray – a former senior civil servant who quit to become a Labour adviser – was hired on a salary of £170,000, making her salary slightly higher than that of Starmer, who earns around £167,000.

The BBC Insiders reportedly claimed that Gray herself had only asked for the salary after the election, when she took up her new post in government, and refused to cut it by several thousand pounds, meaning she would earn less than the Prime Minister.

However, this was strongly denied by sources close to Gray. They said I it was not the case that she had demanded her salary, but she insisted that salary decisions were made by civil servants and not by political appointees.

“This claim is absolutely false. Sue Gray was not involved in any decision about her salary. She was only informed of her salary after it had been decided,” a government source said.

A Cabinet minister jumped to Gray’s aid and said: I: “Sue has done a tremendous job in preparing Labour to form a government and is now showing her usual drive to get Whitehall to deliver on Labour's priorities. She will not be distracted and will carry on as before: she will focus on delivering the change the British people voted for.”

It is the latest in a long line of negative briefings against the chief of staff, who is said to have clashed with other senior figures in Starmer's No 10. The prime minister himself was forced to address the leaks against Gray earlier this week amid fears they could become a red herring.

A former adviser to the Conservative No. 10 parliamentary group who worked with Gray in her previous role said the briefings against Gray could make her position untenable.

They said a similar fate had befallen other advisers who produced negative stories: Alistair Campbell under Tony Blair, Steve Hilton under David Cameron, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill who worked with Theresa May, and Dominic Cummings who served under Boris Johnson.

“Sue won't last. It may not be her fault, but it's never good when you end up being the main character in the story. Like Campbell, or Steve Hilton, or Nick and Fi, or Dom,” they said.

Another Tory adviser added: “Sue Gray is a fundamentally apolitical person who has been thrust into the most political job imaginable. This makes MPs unhappy.”

The former Whitehall ethics chief led the Partygate investigation into Boris Johnson's No 10 before being hired by Starmer ahead of the election. Before and after the general election, Gray was the subject of a barrage of reports citing sources criticising her management.

In the first days of the new government, there were reports of a falling out between Gray and Starmer's head of political strategy, Morgan McSweeney. Gray was also accused of having a tight grip on the political staff of newly appointed ministers, known as special advisers – forcing Cabinet sources to rush to her aid.

On Monday, the Guardian reported internal frustration over the failure of Simon Case, the government's chief executive and former boss of Gray, to get a handle on the damaging leaks.

Case is due to leave his post in the new year, but in light of the ongoing leaks, ministers and 10 Downing Street are reportedly pushing for confirmation of a departure date.

Downing Street was forced this week to deny claims that there was a “nest of vipers” in Starmer’s leadership team.

The situation escalated to such an extent that Starmer himself tried to quell rumours of tensions over the weekend, telling reporters that many of the claims were “completely false”.

“I'm not going to talk behind their backs and I'm not going to talk about individual employees, whether Sue Gray or any other employee,” he said. “All I can say about the stories is that most of them are completely false.”

It is not unusual for advisers to earn more than the ministerial position they work alongside, and all salaries and pay scales for special advisers are set out in an annual report. Starmer himself signed a restructuring of special advisers' salaries shortly after taking office in July.

But the news of Gray’s pay rise only comes after The times announced that Downing Street and Cabinet Office advisers plan to form a union after several of them claimed they had taken a pay cut to take government jobs.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: “These allegations are entirely untrue. It is wrong to suggest that political officials made decisions about their own pay scales or the setting of their own salary.

“Decisions about the pay of special advisers are made by civil servants, not political appointees. As has been publicly stated, special advisers cannot authorize the spending of public funds, nor are they responsible for budgets.”

Gray's salary is not reflected in the most recent publicly available report from July 2023.

According to the report, the top salary for the top pay band is £145,000. Gray's predecessor in Rishi Sunak's government, Liam Booth Smith, received between £140,000 and £144,999.

However, the cap on the remuneration of special advisers has not been increased since 2019.

The Conservative Party responded by posing a series of questions to the Labour Party, including whether the Prime Minister had personally signed off on Gray's new salary and the increase in the cap on the highest pay scale.