Jeremy Corbyn launched his Labour leadership campaign with a pledge to require all medium-sized companies to publish a pay audit in order to ensure there is no discrimination according to gender and race – but the world will soon be able to discover how much he pays his own team.
Under legislation passed quietly and without debate in the House of Commons earlier this month, all opposition staff whose wages are paid out of public funds will soon have to make their salaries public.
Millions of pounds of public funding, known as Short money, is paid to opposition parties in order to allow them to hire staff and effectively challenge the government. However, until now there has been almost no public scrutiny of how Short money is spent.
At his leadership launch, Corbyn demanded greater transparency over how wages are spent within organisations: "I’m making the commitment that the next Labour government will require all employers to publish equality pay audits, detailing pay, grade, and hours of every job, alongside data on recognised equality characteristics."
However, he has yet to publish data for his own office, which could reveal whether there are any discrepancies in the wages received by his staff. Labour is required to make such data public by May 2017 at the latest, although could choose to do so earlier.
The new transparency rules will require Labour and other major opposition parties to publish the salaries of staff who receive more than 50% of their salaries from the fund, revealing which individuals earn the most from working for leading opposition figures. Some expenses data will also be made public.
Former chancellor George Osborne had originally proposed slashing the amount of money paid to opposition parties – which would have cost Labour millions of pounds – but eventually backtracked in favour of increased transparency and accountability following discussions with Labour whips.
The new law will "introduce a similar level of transparency" to the government, according to an individual with knowledge of the deal.
The government currently publishes the salaries of leading political advisers who earn £65,000 or above. Those who earn below this level have their salaries grouped into broader pay brackets.