ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND BONUSES AND USE OF PUBLIC MONEY

Early day motion 116, tabled 19 November 2009 by Dai Davies (Independent). Signed by 27 members.

That this House contrasts the decision on 2 November 2009 of the senior executives of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to make redundant 3,700 workers with its decision reported on 12 August 2009 to offer a £7 million golden handshake to hire one so-called star banker from Merrill Lynch bank and to recruit another banker, as finance director, from the Bank of New York Mellon on a salary package worth more than £5.4 million a year; notes with serious concern the RBS senior management decision in October to set aside a £4 billion bonus pot, which would top the deals awarded at the peak of the financial boom in 2007 and are 66 per cent. higher than those paid in 2008; believes there is no justification for the management of this failed bank receiving such obscene bonuses; recalls that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury told the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent in a written answer on 17 December 2008, Official Report, column 823W, that UK Financial Investments Limited, which was wholly owned by the Government, would work to ensure management incentivisation based on long-term value maximisation, which attracts and retains high quality management and which minimises the potential for rewarding failure; further believes there is no justification for bailing out RBS with a further £25.5 billion from the public purse while its management is reducing its workforce and increasing their own bonuses; and regrets that the Government, instead of handing over billions of pounds of additional taxpayers' money to failed banks, has not fully nationalised them in the public interest.

Signatures by party: Labour 15, Independent 3, Liberal Democrat 3, Social Democratic and Labour Party 3, Plaid Cymru 2, Scottish National Party 1.