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Sir Keir Starmer’s top adviser is “getting the right pay for the job” despite reports she earns £3,000 more than the top minister, former Labour MP Harriet Harman has said.
The Baroness, now a worth and the co-host of Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast, said Sue Grey’s reported salary of more than £170,000 is “the rate for the job”.
A row erupted within authorities on Wednesday when it modified into once claimed Sir Keir’s chief of employees got a pay rise after the total election in July, interestingly taking her salary above the top minister’s. Sir Keir is paid £167,000 each and every year.
Baroness Harman has defended Ms Grey’s salary, telling the podcast she is an “incredibly able person” who is being “paid the rate for the job”.
She said: “The cupboard secretary earns £200,000. The man who runs Manchester City Council gets £220,000.
“You might think all this public service pay is too high, but actually she is getting the right pay for the job and she is an exceptionally talented person to be doing that job.”
In a regional media round on Thursday, Sir Keir insisted he is “completely in control” despite the row.
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The highest minister modified into once requested why Ms Grey modified into once getting paid more than him, and informed BBC South East: “I’m not going to get into discussions about individual salaries about any members of my staff. I’m sure you wouldn’t expect me to.”
Pressed on whether or now not he had a grip on his team following briefings on the matter, Sir Keir said: “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.”
Baroness Harman said the precise fright is that “people ‘within Downing Street’ are briefing and putting that pay into the public domain”.
She said the top minister “will be wanting to work out who is doing this briefing because that is a breach of the ministerial code”.
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Former chief of the Scottish Conservatives Ruth Davidson, who co-hosts Electoral Dysfunction with Baroness Harman and our political editor Beth Rigby, described the briefing as a “proper drive by”.
She said: “This was somebody who decided they’re going to do her in, they were going to absolutely take her out at the knees. They put it together, they gift-wrapped it in a bow and put it on a shiny silver platter.
“And they also delivered it to, in this case, the BBC. And they also knew precisely what they had been doing, and so they knew the time that they had been doing it, merely before birthday celebration convention.”
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Revelations over Ms Grey’s excessive pay is more likely to be embarrassing for Sir Keir after he previously criticised the scale of Dominic Cummings’ salary, who modified into once Boris Johnson’s chief of employees.
The authorities does now not yell the salary level nonetheless insists she did now not assign the level of her salary herself – which is better than her predecessor.
On the opposite hand, this has been challenged by figures awake of the activity. They said successive chiefs of employees who preceded Ms Grey had to conform to tips on adviser pay and advise on the decisions made by ministers.