Directors’ Pay

Esther McVey Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I have seen the work of the existing High Pay Commission, which I think is a voluntary body and which has made some good suggestions, many of which we have taken on board. If the community of investors, think-tanks and others were to come together to examine top pay, I would look with great interest at what it suggested.

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

I welcome the Government’s announcements on executive pay, especially after a decade of runaway executive pay. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is imperative that board members understand that what they do has to be in the interests of not only employees, stakeholders and shareholders but above all else the long-term sustainability and well-being of the business, operating by ethical means?

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right—that is what the corporate stewardship code is all about. That initiative goes hand in hand with the others we are taking to ensure that companies operate on a long-term basis. British business has been undermined for far too long by short-term decision making, and we are trying to move it in the opposite direction.