Labour backs Goodwin honour probe

Calls are being made for Sir Fred Goodwin to be stripped of his knighthood
12 April 2012

Labour leader Ed Miliband has thrown his weight behind calls for former RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin to be stripped of his knighthood.

He told the Daily Mail his party had been "clearly wrong" to recommend that Sir Fred be recognised for "services to banking" in 2004.

The senior City figure has been heavily criticised for his part in the dramatic collapse of RBS and the honour is being reconsidered.

Prime Minister David Cameron is understood to be "sympathetic" to the calls to strip him of the award and said it was "right" it was reviewed. Mr Cameron said the committee should take into account a Financial Services Authority report about the failures at RBS.

The case has been referred to the Honours Forfeiture Committee, made up of some of the country's most senior civil servants.

Mr Miliband told the Mail: "It was clearly wrong for him to be given a knighthood, knowing what we know now about the damage he caused not just to RBS but to hard-pressed ordinary families up and down Britain who are now paying the price of his failure.

"It's right that it should be revoked. There is a widespread recognition of the damage Fred Goodwin caused - and I think the privilege of a knighthood is a privilege you should only continue to enjoy if you haven't done such damage to the British economy."

What sympathy there was for Sir Fred was reduced still further because he failed to show "great remorse" or accept he was to blame for what happened, he suggested.

"This was somebody who basically said, 'I've done nothing wrong, this is everybody else's fault'. That's totally unacceptable. For a lot of people it has come to symbolise the failure of the banking industry to wake up to what has happened."

The Honours Forfeiture Committee normally considers cases only where an individual has been jailed for more than three months or has been struck off or censured by a professional body for failings relevant to the granting of the honour. But Whitehall sources confirmed that the body - led by Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood with other civil servants - would be examining Sir Fred's actions. The banker is not expected to appear before the committee personally.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT