Steve Beasant

The Daily Mail reported the Leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg as now added his weight to the chorus of demands to strip disgraced banker Sir Fred Goodwin of his knighthood.

The Daily Mail reports:

The Deputy Prime Minister’s intervention means all three main party leaders have now backed a review of the honour for the ex-Royal Bank of Scotland chief.

Whitehall’s Forfeiture Committee is to consider whether to ask the Queen to revoke Sir Fred’s knighthood, which was bestowed on him in 2004 for ‘services to banking’.

The Deputy Prime Minister said: ‘Honours should be deserved and awarded to unique people who have made Britain a better place.

‘I sympathise with those who think it a travesty for a man who did so much damage to the British economy and made so much money in the process to retain his knighthood.

‘I understand the outrage and there is an independent process that deals with revoking honours – they must be left to make their own decision on this.’ 

Mr Cameron has said the Forfeiture Committee should take into account a damning report into the collapse of RBS by the Financial Services Authority last month.

It said poor decisions by Sir Fred were a major factor in the crisis that led to RBS being bailed out with £45billion of taxpayers’ money. Meanwhile, Tory MP Matthew Hancock has tabled a series of questions over the granting of Sir Fred’s honour.

Mr Hancock is demanding all correspondence between Treasury officials, ministers and special advisers relating to the honours list of 2004. Gordon Brown, who was Chancellor that year, is said to have backed Sir Fred’s award, but it emerged yesterday that the Scottish government then led by Jack McConnell, now a Labour peer, pushed Sir Fred’s nomination.

To read the full article on Mail online website, view HERE.

The Liberal Democrats have always been against corporate greed and were the strongest opponents of Sir Fred Goodwin who was knighted by the Labour Government for his services to the banking industry.

The following article was published on the Liberal Democrat website on Sunday 22nd March, 2009; at the time of the banking crisis:

Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable has written to Alistair Darling asking that he stop any further pension payments to Sir Fred Goodwin. It follows a whistleblower account of corporate waste and greed at the RBS revealed by the Liberal Democrats.

The anonymous account of behind-the-scenes activities at RBS reveals a culture of extravagance and greed, including the multi-million pound refurbishment of a building for Sir Fred Goodwin’s hospitality use, £1,000-a roll wallpaper and £100,000+ per month chauffeur bills over and above the staff chauffeurs used by top executives.

Vince Cable said: “These revelations show a shocking culture of extravagance and greed at RBS at the expense of savers and shareholders.

“This scandal shows a complete failure of corporate governance and raises a host of legal issues.

“The Government should not pay a penny more to Sir Fred Goodwin. We can then let the courts decide whether it should be stopped entirely on the grounds of negligence or fraud.”

Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesperson, Lord (Matthew) Oakeshott added: “In my 33 years as a pension fund manager I have never seen such greed and waste in a large company.

“‘Sir Fred’ was clearly not grand enough for him – it looks like the Court of King Fred the First of Scotland, with directors and auditors as well fed lap dogs around the throne.”