Calls for failed banker Goodwin to be stripped of his knighthood

Published on Saturday 28 February 2009 18:47

SIR Fred Goodwin was last night facing calls for him to be stripped of his knighthood as the row over his £693,000-a-year pension intensified.

Scottish MP Jim Sheridan said the former RBS chief executive should have his knighthood removed and revealed he had asked the Metropolitan Police to investigate his former activities.

And Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy, asked if Goodwin should lose his knighthood, replied: "He's certainly not behaving like a knight of the realm. I'm not going to get involved in taking their knighthoods… but I do think it is immoral. I think there's been banking vandalism."

Goodwin, who has been widely blamed for the near-collapse of RBS and disastrous losses it suffered, caused outrage when it emerged he had received a 16.9m pension fund on leaving the firm. Goodwin has since resisted demands that he give up the cash.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown insisted yesterday that the Government would now head to the courts to try to claw back some of Goodwin's pension deal. Government sources claimed last night that the deal had not been approved by the full RBS board.

But Goodwin appeared to be continuing to resist the pressure, after arguing last week that he saw no reason to make any further "gesture" to taxpayers and shareholders over his failure at the bank.

Downing Street last night sought to play down speculation that the government had already begun to explore ways of removing his knighthood. Normally, such action is reserved for knights who have gone to jail.

But Sheridan, the Labour MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, said: "We should be looking to take the knighthood off him because I think people would have some difficulty referring to him as Sir Fred given what he's done."

He added: "I think it's only right and proper that the police have access to all the transactions to make sure what has happened is either down to bad judgment or incompetence."

Goodwin was given his knighthood for services to banking in the Queen's Birthday Honours list in June 2004.

Scottish LibDem leader Tavish Scott said Brown now had to explain his own role in Goodwin's pension. It comes amid uncertainty over whether Brown's City Minister Lord Myners nodded through Goodwin's deal when it was agreed last year. Myners insisted last week that he had been told about the deal on the grounds that it was non-negotiable. Ministers claim it was only in the last few weeks that they discovered that the deal was "discretionary".

Scott said: "I don't think the country believes them when they said they didn't know what the pension arrangements were.

"They've completely lost credibility on that. I think he should explain why Sir Fred Goodwin was able to stick two fingers up at them when they questioned the money he has received. The country deserves to have back the additional money out of the pension that the Government must have known about."