BRITAIN’S fat cats scrambled to distance themselves from their club’s newest applicant yesterday, slamming the “inflammatory” £25 million pay packet offered to the would-be chief executive of BG Group.

Outraged gas workers demanded an 85 per cent tax “deterrent” on millionaire wages after Helge Lund was offered pay worth that of 2,113 minimum-wage workers to run the privatised firm.

The Institute of Directors (IoD) said it feared that the cash-and-shares package would be “a red rag to the enemies of the free market” and urged shareholders to reject it at a December 15 extraordinary general meeting.

Mr Lund — currently head of 67 per cent Norwegian state-owned Statoil — is being offered a £12m “golden hello” in shares and up to another £14m a year if he hits performance targets.

The IoD warned: “This pay deal would do serious damage to the reputation of British business six months ahead of a general election,” branding it “excessive” and “inflammatory.”

But the offer is in line with previous payouts at BG Group, the oil and gas exploration wing of formerly state-owned British Gas.

Following its 1986 privatisation under Tory PM Margaret Thatcher it has offered a string of top executives eye-watering packages to head up its operations.

Since 1991, when then British Gas chairman Robert Evans faced the public’s rage for accepting a 66 per cent pay rise to £370,000, the BG Group spin-off has handed out deals worth up to £28m.

Energy industry union GMB said the IoD was right to fear that Mr Lund’s offer  “will bring big business into even more disrepute.”

But GMB national secretary Gary Smith demanded a big tax rise on those earning £1m, warning that words “will not stop them.”

He said: “The top managers right across industry and commerce help themselves to vast sums simply because they can do so and no-one stops them being simply greedy.

“That is why GMB calls for a top tax rate of 85 per cent for very high pay — not to raise revenue but to stop the likes of BG offering £25m in the first place.”

The current average executive pay and shares package within Britain’s top 100 stock market-listed companies stands at more than £2.43m a year, according to analysts Income Data Services — 92 times the average wage and 205 times the minimum wage.

Directors’ pay has risen six times faster over the past 14 years than ordinary workers’.

“Deterring excessive pay for top managers will leave more to be shared with the all the team who create the wealth,” Mr Smith said.