British Gas owner’s boss admits he ‘can’t justify’ £4.5m salary

British Gas owner's boss admits he 'can't justify' £4.5m salaryBreakfast, BBC

Transcript

00:00 OK, there was a second part of that question, is your bonuses.

00:03 Yes, so my pay last year was £4.5 million.

00:07 And that is a salary, or is that a bonus?

00:09 No, no, that's a salary, that's a bonus in a long-term share scheme.

00:12 When you say those words, and you've been very honest with us,

00:15 and we appreciate that, you've said it straightforwardly,

00:18 and you know that there are people watching this

00:20 who are struggling to pay their bills, maybe to your company,

00:25 what goes on in your head?

00:27 So, look, it's a huge amount of money.

00:29 I am incredibly fortunate.

00:30 I don't set my own pay, that's set by a remuneration committee.

00:33 That's the first bonus that I'd taken in my time in Centric.

00:36 In the number of years I'd given up bonuses

00:38 because of hardships that customers were facing,

00:40 I thought it was right that we put a lot of our money,

00:43 a lot of our profits into supporting customers.

00:46 But you can't justify a salary of that size.

00:49 Can you say that again? You can't justify...

00:52 Because it's a huge amount of money.

00:54 To anybody looking at this, it's a huge amount of money.

00:56 OK, if you say you can't justify it,

00:57 I mean, we're the best one in the world,

01:00 and I'm trying to be straight with you, why take it?

01:03 I suppose for the same reason that...

01:05 I mean, if you look, the average wage in the UK is about £30,000.

01:08 All of us sitting here on this sofa

01:09 will make substantially more than £30,000.

01:12 It's not for me to set my own pay.

01:14 It's not for you to set your own pay.

01:16 But you've got to recognise that when you've got people

01:18 that are struggling, like the customer we saw,

01:19 they are struggling for payments.

01:21 I look at my mum, who's in the basic state pension,

01:23 it's just impossible to justify,

01:25 so there's no point in trying to do that.