Marks and Spencer chief Bolland will receive "fair wage"

Sir Stuart said former Morrisons boss Mr Bolland, who joins the company later this year as chief executive, was being paid a wage to be expected of someone running a business the size of Marks & Spencer.

"We are paying him a fair wage. We are paying him 975,000 a year, which is a lot of money but it is the sort of wage that a man running a business of this size would command," he told BBC Breakfast.

"The second part of the controversy, if you like, was the fact that he had some money put aside that he had earned at Morrisons that we had effectively to buy out.

"The third part is, he has got incentives. If he makes his incentives over a three to five-year period, the shareholders will be happy, the customers will be happy, the staff will be happy. The business will be doing very well."

His remarks have been made after M&S hit the headlines over boardroom pay this year with the total 15 million package offered to Mr Bolland, which includes compensation for share options sacrificed at Morrisons.

Sir Stuart was asked on BBC Breakfast if Mr Bolland could "refresh" the parts of the Marks & Spencer business that he had been unable to reach - a light-hearted reference to Mr Bolland's former role at Heineken.

"Probably he can, maybe I should have been drinking more beer, I'm a wine man myself," Sir Stuart joked.

When Mr Bolland joins, Sir Stuart will give up his current controversial executive chairman role to take on a more conventional chairman's position at M&S before stepping down in the summer of 2011.

The executive chairman post he took in 2008 caused anger among major investors because combining the role of chief executive and chairman concentrates too much power in one figure and goes against City best practice.

Sir Stuart's appearance on BBC Breakfast comes after major M&S shareholders were reported to have called for him to take a pay cut.

Leading investors want Sir Stuart's current 1.13 million pay packet to be slashed when Mr Bolland takes over the reins, with one calling for a pay cut of at least 20%, according to the Sunday Times.

Investors are said to be pressing for executive pay to reflect the tough economic climate as the economy crawls out of recession.

M&S refused to comment on the pay cut demands although sources close to the retailer said that "notice had been taken" of their concerns.

The high street giant has warned of tough times ahead for shoppers in 2010 despite the retailer's first like-for-like sales growth in more than two years during the the 13 weeks to December 26.

Last year the group reported a 40% drop in full-year profits to 604 million and slashed its dividend payment by a third - the first dividend cut since 2000.