Leaders clash in Commons row over £1m salaries ‘hypocrisy’

Published on Thursday 2 February 2012 00:00

Labour leader Ed Miliband has called for banks to be forced to disclose how many executives earn more than £1 million.

In an angry exchange between the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition yesterday in the wake of the removal of Fred Goodwin’s knighthood and the issue of bankers’ bonuses, Mr Cameron accused Mr Miliband of “hypocrisy”.

In the Commons, the Labour leader urged the government to implement legislation, already on the statute book, requiring banks to disclose how many employees were paid more than £1m.

He said that Chancellor George Osborne had even advocated naming the bankers concerned before the Conservatives entered government.

But Mr Cameron rejected his call, saying the reform’s author, Sir David Walker, had recommended it should be done at the same time as the rest of the European Union.

He also rejected Labour’s call for ordinary workers to be allowed to sit on remuneration committees, insisting it was not “practical” and broke “an important principle of not having people on a remuneration committee who have their own pay determined”.

Turning the tables on Mr Miliband, he said it was the last Labour administration that agreed a Royal Bank of Scotland bonus pool of £1.3 billion, giving million-pound bonuses to “literally hundreds of people”.

Mr Cameron continued: “The issue for you is, why are you in favour now, in opposition, of things you never did in government?

“Some might call it opposition, some people might call it hypocrisy.”

But Mr Miliband said the Prime Minister was giving “no leadership on top pay” and said the failure to give force to the legislation on bonuses was “another broken promise”.

He told Mr Cameron that hypocrisy was “saying you are going to stop a £1m bonus to Stephen Hester and then nodding it through.

“When it comes to top pay, this government and this Prime Minister are part of the problem, not part of the solution,” he said.

Mr Hester this week bowed to mounting public pressure and waived his near-£1m share bonus after a row over the payment.

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