Sir Keir Starmer’s top aide Sue Gray has been in the news after it was revealed that following Labour’s general election win in July she now earns more money than the British prime minister.
It has being reported Ms Gray requested and was awarded a salary of £170,000, meaning her earnings are almost £3,000 more than those of her boss – who is paid approximately £167,000 from his MP and prime minister’s salaries.
Civil service career in the north
In January 2018, the Executive announced Ms Gray, who has family connections in the north, was transferring to the NI Civil Service as permanent secretary of the Department of Finance in the Executive from May 2018.
In 2020, Ms Gray sought but failed to be appointed as the head of the NI Civil Service. In a subsequent interview with the BBC, she said: “I suspect people may have thought that I perhaps was too much of a challenger, or a disrupter. I am both.” She subsequently transferred to the Cabinet Office in London in May 2021.
Other connections with the north
Ms Gray took a career break from the Civil Service in the 1980s, to run the Cove bar in Newry, with her husband Bill Conlon, who is from Portaferry.
In May 2024, she gave evidence to the Covid-19 Inquiry on her time as a permanent secretary in Stormont’s Department of Finance at the outset of the pandemic.
During her time in the Department of Finance, she was asked to undertake a leak investigation amid official concerns at the volume of information from confidential executive meetings that was being reported in the media.
The inquiry heard how discussions at several high-pressured Executive meetings during the pandemic were effectively live-tweeted by journalists who were being leaked the information in real time.
In July 2024, it was reported in several London papers Ms Gray had been linked to fresh British government efforts to bridge the funding gap for Casement Park.
They alleged she was in urgent discussions about readying the west Belfast GAA stadium for Euro 2028 as a “bailout”.
The Times quoted an anonymous Whitehall source, who accused Ms Gray of “subverting” the cabinet and sparking resentment among ministers by “personally dominating” negotiations over Casement Park. “It’s constitutionally improper,” the source said.
DUP MP Sammy Wilson also accused Ms Gray of “interfering constitutionally” over the heads of Stormont and “promoting the pet projects” of Sinn Féin – in terms of Casement Park.
However, in the same interview he conceded that he had no idea if the allegations from anonymous sources published by the Times on Wednesday were true.
The veteran East Antrim representative’s comments were described as a “rant” and “unserious criticism from an increasingly unserious man”.
Early life and career
Sue Gray was born in north London in 1957. Both of her parents were Irish. They moved to Tottenham in the early 1950s.
Following her father’s sudden death in 1975, Gray abandoned her plan of going to university and joined the Civil Service straight from school.
Ms Gray had joined the British Cabinet Office in the late 1990s, having previously worked at the departments of Health, Transport and Work and Pensions.
Where have we heard about Sue Gray before?
Ms Gray was the former Whitehall ethics chief who conducted the investigation dubbed ‘Partygate’ by the media.
Partygate was the political scandal which ultimately led to the resignation of then British Prime Minister Boris Johnston. It concerned gatherings of government and Conservative Party staff during the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, when public health restrictions prohibited most gatherings.
The Metropolitan Police issued 126 fixed penalty notices to 83 individuals, including Johnston, his wife, Carrie, and Rishi Sunak, who all apologised and paid the penalties.
Sue Gray’s current position
Ms Gray was drafted into Sir Keir Starmer’s team before the recent general election.
She has recently been the subject of a stream of negative stories, most recently regarding her salary.
according to the BBC, Sir Keir Starmer signed off a re-banding of the salaries for special advisers shortly after taking office in July.
Ms Gray’s predecessor in Rishi Sunak’s government, Liam Booth Smith, was paid between £140,000 and £144,999.
The ceiling for special adviser pay has not been increased since 2019, since which time there has been a 24.5% rise in inflation.
