Starmer ‘fully in management’ amid Labour row over Sue Gray’s pay

Keir Starmer was forced to insist he remains ‘completely in control’ of the government tonight amid a furious row over the £170,000 salary handed to his top aide Sue Gray. 

The Prime Minister has reportedly ordered an internal inquiry into how details of his top adviser’s pay were leaked.

The BBC revealed yesterday that No10 chief of staff Sue Gray is earning £3,000 more than the Prime Minister.

The size of the package given to the former civil servant sparked anger among Labour officials in Downing Street, after she reportedly tried to reduce their own salaries on costs grounds. 

But in a round of interviews with regional broadcasters ahead of the start of the Labour Party conference in Liverpool on Sunday the PM tried to deflect questions about her pay.

He told BBC South East: ‘I’m completely in control. I’m focused and every day the message from me to the team is exactly the same, which is we have to deliver.  

‘We were elected on a big mandate to deliver change, I am determined that we are going to do that.’

Today it was reported that Cabinet Secretary Sir Simon Case has been asked to look into how the details were released. 

Ms Gray was reported to earn around £150,000 when she worked for Labour in opposition, but it now eclipses the Prime Minister’s salary of £166,786.

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. 

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’.

Downing Street did not deny reports last night that Ms Gray rejected advice to keep her salary below the Prime Minister’s to avoid controversy.

But this morning the Business Secretary said 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 her pay.

Mr Reynolds told Sky News: ‘I think it’s important people understand that the pay bands for any official, any adviser, are not set by politicians. There’s an official process that does that.

‘I don’t, for instance, get to set the pay for my own advisers who work directly for me. So there’s a process, we don’t have political input into that.’

He added: ‘Sue Gray is getting on with the job of this Government delivering on our promises, I think that’s what matters more than anything else for anyone who works in Downing Street, and I can assure you that is exactly what is happening.’

On whether Sir Keir personally intervened to increase Ms Gray’s salary, Mr Reynolds said: ‘There’s a process that sets these things. It is widely recognised. It’s long-standing. It hasn’t changed and that is how pay bands are set for any adviser.’

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 Keir’s team has been controversial.

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.

Downing Street denied this week that there was a ‘nest of vipers’ behind the scenes in Sir Keir’s 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: ‘I’m not going to talk behind her back and I’m not going to talk about individual members of staff, whether it’s Sue Gray or any other member of staff.

‘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 on Ms Gray’s salary increase, meaning she earns about £3,000 more than Sir Keir, who is paid about £167,000.

Sir Keir signed off a rebanding of the salaries for special advisers shortly after taking office in July, according to the BBC.

This is not reflected in the most recent publicly available report outlining special adviser salaries and pay bands, which is from July 2023.

The focus on Ms Gray’s pay comes at an awkward time for the PM as it swiftly follows another row about his and his wife’s acceptance of lavish gifts from prominent Labour donor and peer Lord Alli.

Speaking to broadcasters on Thursday, Mr Reynolds stuck to the line that he has ‘no problem’ with ministers getting a ‘chance for a little bit of relaxation’ as part of their jobs.

After it emerged that Sir Keir has received more than £100,000 in freebies from donors since 2019 – more than any other recent prime minister – the Cabinet minister denied that being gifted tickets to events was a perk.

Mr Reynolds told Times Radio: ‘It’s not a perk of the job, it’s part of the job. People want to engage with decision-makers. They want to ask you to be aware of what they are doing.

‘Again, I think we have the right rules on transparency in relation to that. But this is about the job that we do and the need to be engaged with the sectors that we cover.’

He added that he had spent ‘pretty much every hour’ working since becoming a secretary of state, ‘and if people get the chance for a little bit of relaxation as part of that, again, I’ve no problem or objection to that’.

Sir Keir has accepted around £39,000 from Lord Alli since December 2019, as well as nearly £40,000 in tickets from the Premier League.

These included four Taylor Swift tickets during the election campaign worth £4,000 and thousands of pounds worth of tickets to Arsenal games.

The Prime Minister was defiant over the donations when questioned about the row by reporters earlier this week, signalling he would continue to accept gifts and hospitality.

‘I’m a massive Arsenal fan. I can’t go into the stands because of security reasons. Therefore, if I don’t accept a gift of hospitality, I can’t go to a game. You could say, ‘well, bad luck’. That’s why gifts have to be registered,’ he said.

‘But, you know, never going to an Arsenal game again because I can’t accept hospitality is pushing it a bit far.’