RBS Under Fire Over CEO £16miilion Pension Pot

After annoucing record corporate losses of £24 Billion ,Royal Bank Of Scotland (RBS) is under fire after the BBC learned that Sir Fred Goodwin, the bank's former chief executive, is already drawing a pension of £650,000 a year, despite only being 50.

Stephen Hester, RBS's new chief executive, said that the pension arrangements for his predecessor came under a legal agreement that the government was part of."I understand this is legally binding on all parties," he said.

However, Chancellor Alistair Darling said that government lawyers were looking to see what could be done to claw back some or all of the pension."You cannot justify these excesses when you have a failure of this magnitude...On a voluntary basis Sir Fred could resolve this," he said.

Shadow chancellor George Osborne called for the government to reveal how much it knew about Sir Fred's pension deal saying,"Whichever way one looks at it, this obscene pension is unacceptable and the government is on the hook..Either they did know and failed to act, or didn't know and failed to ask the right questions.