GLASGOW City Council will not be selling its famous Salvador Dali painting to cover a bill for equal pay settlements.

Susan Aitken, the council leader, said it is not being considered and the sale of assets is not in the council’s thinking as it faces a bill of potentially hundreds of millions of pounds.

Ms Aitken, in a radio interview, said the council expects to reach settlement with the women, unions and legal representatives this year to be able to start paying out on the claims in the next financial year starting in April.

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She criticised her Labour predecessors for leaving others to deal with it but couldn’t put a figure on the total bill.

Ms Aitken said a range of options were open to the council.

However, she said: “We are not discussing flogging off the Dali.”

She said the council could consider borrowing or maximizing income in order to meet the bill without selling assets or cuts to services.

The council, under Ms Aitken, abandoned the long running legal challenges to the court ruling to pay out to thousands of women.

She said she was landed with a problem.

She said: “Our predecessors ‘wussed’ out and kicked it on to the next person. I am the next person. We will deliver the settlement women in Glasgow deserve.”

Read more: Union threatens strike action over Glasgow City Council's 'betrayal' in equal pay claims

While unable to state how much would be paid out she said figures of between half a billion to one billion pounds were not accurate.

She said they had been “plucked out of thin air”.

When told it was a figure given by legal representatives of the women she said: “He has plucked it out of thin air”.