London, January 9, 2012. British Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday vowed to give shareholders the right to veto pay packages of executives, amid mounting political pressure and public anger over huge salaries and bonuses enjoyed by senior executives of some firms.
“The market for top people isn’t working, it needs to be sorted out,” he told the Sunday Telegraph. “Let’s empower the shareholders by having a straight, shareholder vote on top pay packages.” He said a major reform of executive pay would rein in what he called “crony capitalism”, where under-performing executives were seen to “fill their boots”.
“We have got to deal with the merry-go-round where there are too many cases of remuneration committee members sitting on each other’s boards, patting each other’s backs, and handing out each other’s pay rises,” he said.
Labour leader Ed Milbrand, in an interview published in the Guardian Newspaper, scorned the Prime Minister’s stance on executive pay. Labour has put forward a package of its own proposals to curb executive salaries, such as a place for employees on remuneration boards and the publication of a league table of how much more bosses earn than employees.
Agence France-Presse said that the Conservatives’ junior coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, have also spoken out in favour of curbing executive pay.
