Fury has erupted after it was revealed Sue Gray earns more than Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Sue Gray’s salary is £3,000 more than what the Prime Minister earns, a report has suggested (Image: Getty)
Ms Gray, already a highly controversial chief of staff, is now earning a whopping £170,000.
That is £3,000 more than the PM, with one Labour source quipping: “Sue Gray is the only pensioner better off under Labour.”
Ms Gray was reportedly warned prior to accepting the huge sum that it would cause outrage.
A source told the BBC, which broke the news: “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.”
Sue Gray is often referred to as the most powerful woman in Whitehall (Image: Getty)
Sir Keir earns £166,786. The amount prime ministers earn has largely gone unchanged for the past 20 years.
Ms Gray’s predecessor, Liam Booth-Smith, took home between £140,000 and £145,000 as Rishi Sunak’s chief of staff.
In 2021, Sir Keir slammed news that Dominic Cummings had received a £40,000 pay rise under Boris Johnson.
The then-opposition leader tweeted: “£40,000 per year pay rise for Dominic Cummings. £3.50 per week for NHS nurses. The mask has slipped.”
Since coming to office, the Prime Minister has also signed off a “rebanding” of advisers’ salaries, meaning pay rises for all.
Bitterness among Labour advisers was compounded by the fact many only found out their salary offer after working in the job for some weeks, meaning they were stuck after discovering their pay cut.
Ms Gray has already been on the receiving end of a number of briefings since Labour entered power. However, the pay revelation has sparked further indignation towards someone referred to as the most powerful woman in Whitehall.
A government insider branded Ms Gray’s pay “the highest-ever special adviser salary in the history of special advisers”.
Another told the BBC: “It speaks to the dysfunctional way No 10 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.”
The news comes amid an ongoing sleaze row involving the Prime Minister and his wife, who have pocketed thousands in luxury freebies from donors – all while stripping pensioners of their winter fuel allowance.
Ms Gray has also been accused of hoarding power in Downing Street since the election, with claims she has deliberately moved fellow top adviser Morgan McSweeney’s desk away from the PM’s office to cut him out.
She was then briefed against with claims she had “subverted” the Cabinet by personally pushing funding plans for a new stadium in Ireland.
Following the BBC story, the Tories have set out a number of questions for Sir Keir and the Cabinet Office, including whether the PM personally signed off Ms Gray’s new salary and the increase in pay bands.
They have also demanded to know whether Ms Gray is on a committee on the pay of advisers, and whether she played a role in setting her own huge salary.
Crucially, they also asked whether Ms Gray is receiving any top-up of her salary from the Labour Party.
