Income and Wealth Inequality

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I completely agree with the noble Lord that many directors have had pay increases which bear no relation to either pay increases that other people have had or the performance of their company, and that is why this Government have introduced a raft of measures to make firms more accountable to their shareholders for the pay packages that directors get. However, I remind the noble Lord that those people who are in the top 1% of wage earners and whose pay has gone up now contribute some 28% of the total income tax collected.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend recollect that the late Lord Bauer, a pathfinding economist in many areas, suggested that in this context a more objective word than “inequality” is “difference”?

[Lord Newby]

I am not sure that I do recollect altogether. It is important to look at inequalities as well as differences because there is an additional dimension in the word “inequality” to the neutral word “difference”.