He was allowed to keep his share options which he cashed in, making a pounds 650,000 profit. He left to go to National Grid, where he earns pounds 120,000 a year and where he has acquired 119,000 shares in National Grid, worth pounds 207,000.Bill Fraser left South West Water, where he was managing director, earlier this year, after a series of environmental accidents. He was paid pounds 226,000 for loss of office, an additional pounds 100,000 in pension contributions and pounds 10,000 in non-cash benefits. He resigned just before the publication of a report into an incident of water contamination in Devon that left hundreds of people ill Mr Fraser’s salary was pounds 224,000. His salary was pounds 360,000, so he had received pounds 160,000 Dr Urwin was on a three-year rolling contract. Signalling the start of an autumn offensive, the front-bench Treasury spokesman, Alan Milburn MP, said that the issue extended far deeper than the pay packages of Cedric Brown at British Gas and Sir Desmond Pitcher at North West Water.
Roger Urwin was chief executive of London Electricity until he resigned halfway throughlast year. Alistair Darling, Labour’s Treasury spokesman, attacked the Chancellor for “denigrating the efforts of those working in the public sector”.But he added: “We have no intention of giving in or surrendering positions that cannot be justified or paid for.

I want to make it abundantly clear we will maintain tight control of public spending and I think most people understand that.”. Three utility bosses have each netted pounds 1m in the past year, Labour said yesterday, as the party promised to redouble its efforts to expose “fat cats” in the run up to the party conferences. This is a strategy that will fail.”He added: “Mr Clarke’s wallet is bulging with the 26 per cent pay increase that MPs awarded themselves only three months ago, yet he is intent on forcing civil servants who have met all the targets set by this Government to swallow a pay freeze for a further year.”It is breathtaking double standards and the electorate will see through it,” he added.Labour acted quickly to scotch suggestions that an incoming Labour government would be a soft touch for the public-sector unions. John Monks, the TUC general secretary, accused Mr Clarke of playing politics with public-sector pay.”This cynical ploy is announced on the same day we discover that fat cat directors are giving themselves pay rises over four times the rate of inflation.”Kenneth Clarke is hitting nurses, teachers and other crucial public- sector workers in the wallet to give him enough money to buy votes with tax cuts in the run-up to the general election.”Barry Reamsbottom, general secretary of the CPSA, the UK’s biggest civil service trade union, said: “Mr Clarke thinks that by acting the tough guy with civil servants on their pay, he will win a few more votes for the beleaguered Tory government. With MPs awarding themselves a 26 per cent pay rise, and figures yesterday showing company executives averaging increases of 12 per cent, the public service unions accused Mr Clarke of “breathtaking double standards”.Roger Kline, of the white collar MSF union, warned that unions would ballot on industrial action if the staff were not properly rewarded.

It means the Government could face industrial unrest in the run-up to the election. Public service workers can expect no more than 2 to 3 per cent and it could mean cuts in services to pay for any rises. Kenneth Clarke told the pay review bodies for nurses, doctors, civil servants and teachers that the Government can afford no pay increases unless they are financed from productivity.
But the sting in the tail, which provoked an outcry from the unions, was his warning that pay recommendations should be lower than they were this year Most pay awards have averaged about 3 per cent. The Chancellor faced an angry backlash yesterday after telling 5 million public-sector workers that their pay must be held below this year’s 3 per cent going rate. They are proud of their CDs and even put them in special furniture, but they see their videos as rather messy and often hide them away,” he added.Until the re-recordable version of DVD is launched, its appeal might remain limited to the video aficionado, but all the main entertainment companies are betting on it.A DVD player for the computer – which is expected to rapidly displace the CD-Rom system – is likely to go on sale next year, so there looks like there will be very few places safe from the DVD system in the near future..

However, this will only enable the user to record on the disc once. It could take another two years before a fully re-recordable version of the DVD system comes on to the market.The manufacturers and the Hollywood studios are banking on the fact that the superb picture quality and convenience of the system will be enough to create a market for it.But they have added to the cost with their demands that the manufacturers introduce clever schemes to stop copying and systems to divide the world up into regions to prevent people taking discs into territories where they have not yet been released.The two European manufacturers – Philips and Thomson – are quietly furious about the delays that have been caused by problems with the Hollywood studios and the internal fights within the DVD alliance.However, Philips and Thomson have been prepared to put up with the delays because they are convinced that they have a winner.”The consumer will undoubtedly ‘click’ to this product – they are used to CDs and they will just see this as video from CDs, something they have been looking for for a long time,” said Xavier Weeger of Thomson.”I think that it really will push out video much faster than some people realise.”People hate their video tapes. The video disc will begin replacing the tape by early next year after the world’s leading consumer electronic companies agreed a basic standard at a meeting in Brussels. Digital video discs (DVD) will be the same size as a compact disc and will store eight hours of material with very high quality sound.
To begin with, DVD will be a play-only system, with the disc-players costing from pounds 500 to pounds 700 and a disc costing between pounds 9 and pounds 15.They will be on the market in the United States and Japan by Christmas and reach British shops in the new year.Next year, a version of the system that can make recordings should be launched.