Sir Adrian Cadbury

The merger with Schweppes meant your company's products were often mixed with alcohol. Was that a problem for a Quaker?

Yes, um there was concern about um uh that although arguably that the fact that people put other things with the tonic was not. I mean, we weren't actually selling the gin. I know that's a perhaps a quibble, but um. Absolutely, yes. If your personal principles don't allow you to take part in such a business, then you have to sell your shares. But from the point of view of running the business, you have to ensure, it seems to me, the well being and the continuity, profitable continuity of the business.

One of your rules is that boards should invite many more non-executive directors. Isn't it idealistic to expect a board to be entirely objective about who they appoint?

Inevitably there is that element. Um but equally you're concerned about the future of the business. The chemistry, if you like a board, is important. But that is different from saying it should be like a club, a cosy board, if you're looking at it from a chairman's point of view, as I was. And still am in a sense. A cozy board in the end is going to lead to trouble. There is a monitoring job to be done, and that is quite true. We in fact produced a report on the financial aspects of corporate governance, so we didn't actually look at the whole field of the way in which companies are directed and controlled. Otherwise, we would have made much more of the positive role of non-executive directors. I mean, for example, in my experience, they are enormously helpful in thinking about strategy. And that's really one of the most important roles of the outsider.

What do you think about the issue of very high salaries for company chairmen and chief executives, like the 75% rise for the chief executive of British Gas?

My feeling about very high individual salaries is that while there are certainly remarkable individuals who can turn a company round and give it a new sense of direction, at the end of the day that the company is made up of a of a large team of people, all of whom contribute to that success. I think it's the ratio, if you like, between pay at the top of a company and pay the shop floor. There is a certain sense of human justice, I think, about how big that gap should be. Interestingly, it varies by countries. I mean, the Americans would accept a far wider differential than we would. And the Japanese would accept a far smaller one. I mean it so there is a sort of cultural aspect, but at the end of the day, it's a question of what is acceptable. And it is up to the public, to commentators, to the shareholders to say if they think those bounds of acceptability have been passed. And they can only do that if they have full information. So one of the other sides to this, which we've not had in the past, is complete disclosure of the present and future benefits being awarded to directors. And that was something we said in our report.