It is good news that the rewards for Britain's top CEOs have increased substantially on the previous year. Although this has been depicted as a 'pay' increase, in fact most of it is made up of performance-related rewards such as shares and share options. Only a tiny fraction of it relates to salaries.

It is good news for Britain that our top executives have been delivering the goods with a substantially improved performance. This bodes well for the viability and competitiveness of UK businesses in the future, which in turn will improve the prospects for employment here. They have gained performance-related rewards by improving the results on the previous, poor year.

It is also a good thing that in an international economy, Britain can offer the kind of rewards that attract and retain the high business achievers. Far from criticizing or curtailing these incentives, we should be seeking to make them even more attractive by removing the disincentive of the 50 percent top income tax band.