Sir Philip Hampton marked his arrival as the new chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland with a massive clearout of many of the longest-standing members of the board today.

He has axed seven non-executive directors including many who presided over a series of disastrous acquisitions made by former chairman Sir Tom McKillop and his chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin.

The Government has demanded three seats on the bank's board in return for its £20billion bailout.

The casualties of today's clearout include Sir Peter Sutherland, the BP and Goldman Sachs International chairman, Bob Scott, the architect of insurance group CGNU which is now Aviva, and former Treasury mandarin Sir Steve Robson.

Other departures include former Heathrow chairman Janis Kong, Eurocrat Jim Currie, Bill Friedrich who was deputy chief executive of BG, and Bud Koch who ran US bank Charter One which RBS bought for $10.5billion (£7.1billion) in 2004.

Today's cull will save RBS £700,000 in directors' fees with the outgoing board members paid anything from a basic £70,000 up to £160,000.

UKFI, the Government body which holds its 70 per cent stake in RBS as well as its stake in Lloyds and total ownership of Northern Rock, will announce its three nominees to the board shortly.

In the meantime, it needs to find itself a chairman after Hampton moved across from that post to head RBS.