Sir Fred critic ‘signed off a £4.5m City bonus’

MICHAEL FALLON, the Conservative deputy chairman of the Treasury select committee, risked accusations of hypocrisy today after it emerged he has approved a multi-million-pound payout to a leading financier.

Mr Fallon, who has been deeply critical of the City bonus culture, is a £45,000-a-year non-executive director of financial firm Tullett Prebon, and chairs its remuneration committee.

Tullett's chief executive Terry Smith picked up £4.52 million in pay and bonuses last year and was handed a £5.1 million free-share award.

Tullett's revenues soared by 25 per cent last year and profits rose 36 per cent to £155 million.

In today's annual report for the money, shares and foreign exchange broker, Mr Fallon said the committee "considered whether to take account of general public issues" but would "make decisions in accordance with the best interests of the company and its shareholders and in conformity with previously stated policies".

Mr Fallon has been a keen critic of former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin's £703,000-a-year pension, and of City minister Lord Myners, who approved the payout after Sir Fred was ousted from the collapsing bank last October.

In the Guardian late last year Mr Fallon said: "Mega-bonuses, out of all proportion to ordinary earnings, destroy the social consensus on which a free economy depends."

The value of Mr Smith's £5.1 million free share award is based on revenues rising by 10 per cent over the next three years.