Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson says big businesses should tie executive pay schemes to company performance
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson will use a major speech in London today to call on Britain's biggest businesses to tie executive compensation schemes to company performance.
"I do think we should consider the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development's proposal for companies to ensure that reward packages are more aligned to financial and non-financial performance," Davidson will say in a lecture tonight at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a social policy charity.
"Not just based on profit margins – but also on how engaged employees are, and how workforce development is improved," Davidson will add. "Publishing the pay gap, having employees on the remuneration committee.
"I don't really think people resent the fact that a chief executive gets paid well or is the highest earner in an organisation.
"I think they do resent it when they see chief executives cashing in hundreds of thousands in the bank no matter whether the company they run is going up in the markets or going down the pan. I think they resent it when record bonuses are paid to the boardroom, when members of the workforce are laid off or facing a pay freeze."
Davidson's speech will largely focus on how the Conservatives would combat the causes of poverty. The Scottish Tory leader is expected to back new policies to offer more childcare provision for 1- and 2-year-olds, as well as more funding provisions for further education colleges.
Davidson told The Herald newspaper earlier today that she is ready to be leader of the opposition in the Scottish parliament after May's Holyrood elections.
A YouGov poll out last week put the Tories ahead of Scottish Labour in the constituency section of the ballot for the first time in nine years, with 20 per cent of voters backing the Conservatives and 19 per cent supporting Labour.
In the regional list vote, YouGov found Labour and the Tories tied on 20 points.
A TNS poll also out last week found Labour ahead of the Tories by four points in constituency votes, and two points ahead in the regional vote share.
Both polls showed the SNP commanding more than 50 per cent of the vote in the constituency section and on regional lists.