Clegg set to crack down on firms’ pay levels at the top

The Deputy Prime Minister said action would be taken in the New Year to ensure that state employees do not feel like they are doing “all the heavy lifting”.

The Government recently finished consulting on measures designed to improve transparency and curb excessive packages.

Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show yesterday, Mr Clegg stressed that the Government would not be “going round setting pay rates in the private sector”.

But he indicated that there would be moves to boost transparency, with legislation brought forward if necessary.

“Just as we have been quite tough on unsustainable and unaffordable things in the public sector, we now need to get tough on irresponsible and behaviour of top remuneration of executives in the private sector,” the Liberal Democrat leader said.

“I think we need to make sure that people in the public sector do not feel that they are doing all the heavy lifting.

“That people who are in a sense living by completely different rules in the private sector are also held to account.”

Mr Clegg, MP for Sheffield Hallam, went on: “I do not mean that the Government starts going round setting pay rates in the private sector. I believe people should be well paid if they succeed.

“What I abhor is people who get paid bucketloads of cash in difficult times for failing.”

Mr Clegg said he wanted to “break open this closed shop of remuneration committees which seems to be too often an old boy’s network... I scratch your back you scratch my back.”

Rank-and-file employees could be put on remuneration committees, and companies could be forced to publish pay ratios between junior and senior staff.