Britain's bailout includes salary rules

Three British banks participating in a government bailout agreed to forgo executive bonuses for 2008 and link future bonuses to performance, officials said.

The plan, which commits $64 billion to partially nationalizing Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS and Lloyds TSB, is driven by our values Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday.

For this government, and I believe the whole country, the guiding idea is fair reward for hard work, effort and enterprise, not incentives for irresponsibility or excessive risk-taking for which the rest of us have paid, Brown said.

Unlike the $700 billion bailout plan passed in Washington, the British plan involves buying equity in the nation's banks, rather than illiquid assets.

This is perhaps the first government to do what I believe a large number of governments are going to do over the next few days, Brown said Monday.