Pay of top No10 advisers soars by almost £1million under Labour as Morgan McSweeney leads parade of Starmer advisers with six-figure pay
The Prime Minister's top special advisers - known in Westminster as spads - are costing the taxpayer almost £4.2million a year, according to official figures released today.
The Prime Minister's chief of staff Morgan McSweeney heads the list of the best paid Downing Street staff with pay of up to £159,999 - £15,000 more than his Tory predecessor.
Jonathan Powell, the national security adviser who played a leading role in the 'surrender' of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, is the joint second highest-paid with a salary of up to £149,000.
The Cabinet Office today released the salary bands of all spads in the government paid more than £76,000.
They showed that despite talk of cutting the cost of the government, Labour has only shaved £400,000 off the total bill across all departments in the first year.
The almost £4.2million spend by No10 alone in the past year is up from £3.3million under Rishi Sunak's last Tory administration.
The average salary of a senior No10 aide is £107,434, higher than it was under Mr Sunak, and there are also more spads working for the current PM.
One Tory source pointed to the row this week over Labour ministers struggling to define the average worker, adding: 'No wonder they can't define a working person - all of them are earning more than the average Joe.'
The Government also forked out £3.1million in severance payments - largely for former Conservative special advisers who lost their jobs following the general election.
But the figure is also likely to include a pay off for Sir Keir's ousted chief of staff, Sue Gray.
She was entitled to five weeks' salary - around £16,000 before tax - after her departure from No10.
She earned £170,000, more than the Prime Minister, but was axed after weeks of bitter briefings against her.
No special adviser in the government now earns more than the PM's £167,000 salary.
After the cost of severance is removed, the cost of spads in the year to March 31 2025 was £13.6million, down from £14million in the year previously.
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