The cost of living crisis continues to afflict Brits across the country – but it would appear that Scottish government ministers aren’t having such a bad time of it. In fact SNP ministers will see their pay packets boosted by a whopping £20,000 after First Minister John Swinney’s government ended a voluntary pay freeze on salaries in a move the FM says was based on ‘fairness’. Not everyone is impressed by the decision, however, with opposition politicians slamming it as a ‘reward for failure’. Even SNP backbencher Fergus Ewing has taken a pop at party colleagues over the issue – tweeting this afternoon: ‘I read that Scottish government ministers are to get a £20,000 pay rise; is this April the first?’ Ouch.
In 2009, former first minister Alex Salmond introduced a pay freeze for Scottish government ministers after the economic crash. It meant that ministers in Holyrood didn’t take their full combined salary – made up of their MSP pay and a ministerial salary – leading to public savings of over £2 million. Now Swinney has partially reversed the freeze, with ministers set to receive their full MSP entitlement (set currently at £74,507) as the FM insisted: ‘All members of the Scottish parliament should be able to take the salary which they are entitled to.’ In a bid to prove the move was not personally motivated, Swinney has revealed he will not take the pay bump – a development that rather curiously emerged after the Mail on Sunday approached the SNP leader about the story, according to the paper. How very interesting…
Junior ministers will now receive over £100,000 a year, while Scottish cabinet secretaries will be paid a staggering £116,125. And it’s not just Ewing who thinks this is a joke: Scottish Tory finance spokesperson Craig Hoy has slammed the Nats for ‘stifling the economy, pushing through savage cuts and making Scotland the highest-taxed part of the UK’ while Labour’s Jackie Baillie lamented: ‘As the bill for ministerial salaries rises, Scots will be more frustrated than ever to see services continue to decline on the SNP’s watch.’ Quite!
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