UK Ministerial Salaries Order 2026: What Changed

If you have ever looked at a statutory instrument and thought, "What am I actually meant to do with this?", this is a good example of why plain-English explainers matter. The document published on legislation.gov.uk is called the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975 (Amendment) Order 2026, and its job is simple once you strip away the formal language: it updates certain public office salaries and changes the rule used to raise them in future. The Order was made on 3 June 2026 and came into force on 4 June 2026. It was made at Buckingham Palace by the King in Council, but only after a draft had been approved by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, as required by section 1B of the 1975 Act. That matters because it shows this was not an informal decision. It followed a set legal route through Parliament.

According to the legislation.gov.uk text, the Order changes salaries payable under the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975 to ministers, Opposition leaders and whips, and the Speakers of the Commons and Lords. It also rewrites the formula in section 1A of that Act, which is the rule used to alter those salaries from year to year. **What this means:** there are really two changes happening at once. First, the law sets new salary figures. Second, it changes the method used to update those figures in later years. One is about the numbers you can see now; the other is about how the next round of numbers will be calculated.

One detail that can easily catch readers out is the date. The Order came into force on 4 June 2026, but articles 3 to 5 are treated as having effect from the beginning of 1 April 2026. In plain terms, the legal instrument starts on 4 June, yet the salary amounts it sets are applied from 1 April. That is not unusual in this sort of legislation, but it is worth slowing down over. When people hear that a law starts on one date and applies from an earlier one, it can sound contradictory. Here, it simply means the Order is the legal mechanism used to confirm salary levels from the start of the 2026-27 pay year.

The clearest cash changes in the text are these. For the Lord Chancellor, the two statutory salary figures in section 1(2) rise from £68,827 to £75,170 and from £101,038 to £110,351. For the Speaker of the House of Commons, the figure rises from £75,766 to £82,750. For the Speaker of the House of Lords, it rises from £101,038 to £110,351. The Order also replaces the salary table for Opposition posts in Schedule 2. In the House of Commons, the Leader of the Opposition is set at £68,911, the Chief Opposition Whip at £36,045, and Assistant Opposition Whips at £21,021. In the House of Lords, the Leader of the Opposition is set at £75,043 and the Chief Opposition Whip at £69,392. These are the figures stated in the new table published on legislation.gov.uk.

The Schedule attached to the Order also replaces parts of Schedule 1 to the 1975 Act, which covers a wider set of ministerial offices. The text names Cabinet-level and non-Cabinet roles including the Lord President of the Council, Lord Privy Seal, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Paymaster General, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and several Commons whip posts. For readers, the key point is not memorising every title. It is understanding that ministerial pay is set in law by office, not just by the broad idea of being "a minister". Different roles sit in different statutory categories, and the schedules to the Act are where those categories are updated.

The other major change is the formula for annual increases. The new section 1A says that for each 12-month period beginning on 1 April, any salary payable under section 1 is to be increased by the "relevant percentage". That percentage is tied to the average rise in the mid-points of Senior Civil Service pay bands below permanent secretary, compared with the previous 1 April. **What this means:** future increases are meant to follow a stated benchmark rather than being picked afresh each time without a rule. The law links these political office salaries to changes in senior civil service pay bands, which gives you a clearer way to see how the numbers move from one year to the next.

There is also a one-year transitional rule for the period beginning on 1 April 2026. For that year only, the relevant percentage is either the standard figure based on the pay bands below permanent secretary or, if it is higher, the average increase using the Senior Civil Service pay bands including the permanent secretary band. That sounds dense, but the practical reading is straightforward. The 2026-27 year gets a special calculation so that, if including the top band produces a higher average rise, that higher figure can be used. After that, the standing rule is the one based on the bands below permanent secretary.

Why should you care about a document like this? Because pay for ministers, Opposition office holders and parliamentary Speakers is public money, and public money should be readable. If the law looks closed-off or ceremonial, people switch off. But once you translate the wording, you can see the democratic basics: Parliament approved the draft, the Order set updated salary amounts, and the annual uplift rule was rewritten. So the short version is this. On legislation.gov.uk, the 2026 Order updates statutory salaries, applies those amounts from 1 April 2026, and changes the formula for future yearly rises. If you are learning how government works, that is the real lesson here: even a dry legal text is telling you who gets paid, who approves it, and which rule will shape the next increase.