FTSE 100 Company Pay Ratios

Debate between Laura Pidcock and Kirsty Blackman

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Laura Pidcock (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) for securing this important and timely debate. Such debates expose our politics and the difference between political parties. It is vital that we discuss not only pay ratios, but solutions to extortionate pay, such as an excessive pay levy, and improved collective bargaining for workers through strong trade unions as a way to uplift the pay of millions of workers. It is also crucial that we are able to place the extortionately high pay of FTSE 100 chief executives in the context of low pay and the crisis of work in this country, where millions struggle to make ends meet, and where work is certainly no longer the preventer of poverty, which is a reality for millions of people.

Despite this state of affairs, as was mentioned, by lunchtime on 4 January, the top chief executives in the UK had been paid more than their average employee is paid in an entire year—an extraordinary fact. Every single year, that date and time comes sooner in the year. Unless action is taken, it will be one minute past midnight on 1 January when those people will have been paid much more than their employees. Every year, the Government take no action on that extraordinary fact. Those at the top are increasing their wealth.

I agree with my hon. Friend: perhaps this place should relax a little, because “fat cats” is exactly the right title for those executives who now get 133 times more than the average worker, which means that the salary of the average FTSE chief executive is the same as that of 386 workers on the minimum wage. It is politically poignant to note that some people are not outraged by that statistic. They are quite comfortable with the inordinate, huge salaries of executives who are paid grossly more than those who work for them.

I am sure that nobody would argue—my hon. Friend touched on this—that a FTSE 100 chief executive works 133 times harder than a hospital porter, a cleaner or a caterer. I went on a solidarity protest yesterday with strikers at the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Let us think about the caterer on exactly £8 an hour fighting for the London living wage. That works out at about £1,280 a month if they work a 40-hour week every single week of the month. If we think of rent, transport, bills and food, that person has a tiny amount to live on every month. I am sure nobody would argue that a FTSE 100 chief executive works 133 times harder than a teacher or a nurse in our NHS, or that they somehow have a combined worth of 386 workers.

[Kirsty Blackman]

The hon. Lady is making an incredibly powerful point. Does it annoy her as much as it annoys me that the Tories talk about hard-working families, but they do not mean hospital porters? They mean people who are much higher up the tree. Hospital porters, cleaners, chefs and the people she talks about work incredibly hard every day just to make £8 an hour.

[Laura Pidcock]

And that work should be valued. It is no coincidence that those people who work really hard, but very often still cannot survive and do not have enough money to pay the bills, get into debt to pay for everyday items—not for luxury holidays, or any luxuries at all. Those people should be at the heart of our concerns in this place. I am mindful never to use the word “earn” when we talk about the pay of the very few at the top. What could they possibly do to earn such large amounts of money?

It is crucial to recognise the context in which FTSE 100 pay ratios are widening. In a stark contrast to the stockpiling of wealth by a few, years of austerity and wage stagnation mean that millions of workers across the country struggle to make ends meet, as I say. In-work poverty is rising and household debt is at its highest rate. Many people rely on borrowing, and one in five workers—more than 5 million people—are paid less than a living wage. That is a huge increase from 3.4 million in 2009. Insecure work has without a doubt become the norm, with nearly 4 million people—one in nine workers—facing uncertainty and worry. They are trapped. To illustrate the low-pay trap, one in four employees earning the minimum wage for five years has been unable to move out of that low-pay trap. Some people do two or three jobs to try to pay the bills, but it has not always been like that.

In 1980, as was mentioned, the median pay of directors in FTSE 100 companies was £63,000, and median pay across the country was £5,400. The ratio of executive pay to the average wage then, less than 40 years ago, was 11:1. In 2002, the pay of a FTSE 100 CEO had shot up to 79 times that of their average employee, and last year it had reached 150 times. This place is doing nothing to stop that runaway train of inequality. I seriously hope that those ratios are unacceptable and completely unjustifiable to anyone. It is particularly obscene that this escalation has come at a time when millions of people are struggling. There is a stark contrast between those two sets of people.

No doubt the Minister will refer to the Government’s reforms to tackle excessive pay in her speech shortly, but I want to make it absolutely clear that under this Government, not only has pay inequality continued to rise, but so has the speed at which it increases. I am proud that Opposition MPs are committed to taking action, because doing nothing is not good enough. When I have been out campaigning, loads of times I have heard people say, “The rich continue to get richer and the poor get poorer. There is nothing we can do about it,” but I fundamentally disagree. Yes, the rich are getting richer, but we can definitely do something about it.

In contrast to the Tories, a Labour Government would ensure pay ratios of no more than 20:1 in the public sector, for example, and we would introduce an excessive pay levy that would charge a 2.5% levy on earnings above £330,000 a year, which is a huge amount, and 5% on those above £500,000. It is estimated that that alone would raise £1.3 billion a year.

I am sure that the Minister will mention that from 1 July the Government will ensure that companies with more than 250 employees will be obliged to reveal and justify their pay ratios. However, there is no obligation on those companies to take any meaningful action beyond the act of publishing those facts. It is yet more empty rhetoric. How is it helpful just to have the injustice out there, without any action to remedy it?

We need practical, political solutions to curb undeserved excessive pay, and to create mechanisms for better income distribution. That is why we commissioned a report by Prem Sikka, published last year, suggesting a range of measures that would apply to the more than 7,000 companies in the UK that have more than 250 employees, accounting for more than 10 million workers. Needless to say, we are looking at the report’s recommendations closely, including proposals requiring executive remuneration packages of all large companies to be subject to a binding vote.

That is just one solution to excessive executive pay. Trade unions are the collective voice of workers, and they have to be central to the debate. They are a huge player in reducing inequality in the workplace, but, after years of anti-union policies, the vast majority of workers have absolutely no say over their pay, conditions or hours of work. Protections that existed before under collective bargaining agreements have been completely lost.

Workers deserve a lot more. Pay ratios are just one aspect of tacking pay inequality. That is why a Labour Government would set up a new Department to roll out sectoral collective bargaining—protecting the interests of workers, strengthening trade unions, and introducing new rights and freedoms so that every worker gets the support, security and pay at work that they deserve.

Surely it is time to end the excessive greed. People are feasting on the backs of workers who are struggling to make ends meet, and who have the gut-wrenching feeling that they cannot afford nappies for their children, even though they work more than 40 hours a week. Surely that cannot be right. The Government must act to end that injustice.