Pay rise would give first minister Nicola Sturgeon biggest salary of any UK politician including prime minister and Boris Johnson

Holyrood has voted through a pay rise for MSPs that would give the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, the highest salary of any politician in the UK.

The Scottish parliament voted unanimously on Tuesday to increase basic salaries for MSPs by 0.7%, pushing the official overall salary for Scotland’s first minister to £144,687 – outstripping the prime minister’s overall pay of £142,500 and that of Boris Johnson, the London mayor, who earns £143,911.

However, Sturgeon’s officials played down the significance of the pay rise, pointing out that Scottish ministers were still enforcing a voluntary pay freeze introduced under Alex Salmond’s leadership in 2008.

That meant Sturgeon’s overall pay would remain at £135,605 since she will continue voluntarily repaying the £8,306 difference, putting that sum into general public spending along with all other SNP ministers.

The 0.7% pay increase gives all 129 MSPs a salary of £59,089. It means Scottish ministers will now have an official pay package of £103,495. Carwyn Jones, the first minister of Wales, receives £134,722.

The official pay rise came into effect after MSPs voted to decouple their pay rises from the salaries of MPs at Westminster. Under the legislation that established the Scottish parliament in 1999, MSPs’ salaries were pegged at 87.5% of the pay given to MPs.

The decision to decouple MSPs pay from Westminster is designed to distance Holyrood from the controversial proposal to push up MPs pay by 10% to £74,000 as recommended by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority – a decision that has already been rejected by UK party leaders.

If any pay rise for MPs and ministers of 1.6% or higher were implemented by the House of Commons, that would end Sturgeon’s status as the highest paid politician in the UK. MPs, pay is already due to rise by 1% in April, to £67,731.

A spokesman for the Taxpayers Alliance Scotland said: “At a time when the public finances are so pressed, it’s deeply troubling to see MSPs taking home a pay rise. They need to have the moral authority to make tough decisions on spending.”