SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon to become highest-paid British politician with £145k salary
NICOLA STURGEON is to become the highest-paid politician in Britain just days after calling for an end to austerity measures.
The SNP leader’s salary will next month soar to £144,687 – £2,000 more than David Cameron earns as Prime Minister.
It comes after Holyrood politicians yesterday voted themselves a pay rise designed to distance themselves from Westminster excesses.
All five parties at the Scottish Parliament unanimously agreed to end the long-running practice of pegging their pay to that of MPs.
MSPs had been paid 87.5 per cent of an MP’s wage and were in line to get a nine per cent increase after the general election.
But leaders at Holyrood said it was “politically unthinkable” to take the hike in the current economic climate.
However yesterday’s vote for a 0.7 per cent increase will see the First Minister’s pay boosted beyond that of other political leaders.
Nicola Sturgeon is taking home more than the Prime Minister
From April 1 the former solicitor will get an MSP’s salary of £59,089 and £85,598 as First Minister.
Mr Cameron is currently paid a total of £142,500, Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones gets £129,047, and Northern Irish First Minister Peter Robinson gets £120,000.
Ms Sturgeon, whose party is expected to make major gains in May’s election, has repeatedly said she would prop up a Labour government only if it dropped spending cuts.
Last month she used a speech in London to attack Westminster’s “austerity economics” and called for £180billion extra to be spent on public services by 2020.
A spokesman for campaign group Taxpayer Scotland last night said: “It will strike taxpayers across Britain as absolutely perverse that Nicola Sturgeon is taking home more than the Prime Minister.
"At a time when the public finances are so pressed, it’s deeply troubling.”
