RBS chairman turns down £1.4m bonus

THE Royal Bank of Scotland chairman, Sir Philip Hampton, has waived the £1.4 million shares award he was due to pick up next month.

In contrast to the RBS chief executive Stephen Hester, who sparked outrage by taking home a £963,000 share bonus, Hampton has given up his award on the grounds that it would not be appropriate to take it.

Hampton was awarded 5.17m shares in the part-nationalised bank on top of his salary when he joined the institution in February 2009 and he is soon eligible to take it.

Sir Philip’s decision to sacrifice the so-called restricted share award is understood to have been made some time ago, but was revealed yesterday.

It comes at a difficult time for the bank, with Hester having just been awarded his near £1m bonus on top of his £1.2m salary.

The revelation is sure to heap pressure on Hester to reconsider taking his bonus. There has been huge political fall-out from the move as the taxpayer owns an 82 per cent stake in the bank after the government was forced to bail it out to stop it from collapsing in the financial meltdown.

Yesterday David Cameron said it was up to Hester whether he took the bonus.

The Prime Minister said RBS is aware that government ministers believe the state-owned bank’s bonuses are excessive, but added it would be prohibitive to change the team trying to bring the institution under control.

Mr Cameron said: “We do have to bear in mind that the alternatives to what’s happening now could be even more expensive, if you had a whole new team coming into RBS.”