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Harriet Harman has been forced to admit a high-profile blunder after wrongly telling MPs former banking chief Sir Fred Goodwin was knighted for charity work and not "services to banking".
Labour's deputy leader tried to bat off criticism of the honour given to the former Royal Bank of Scotland boss as she stood in for Prime Minister Gordon Brown at Commons Question Time.
But her explanation of why the man blamed for leading RBS to near-collapse and needing a multibillion-pound taxpayer bail-out got a gong was directly at odds with the official record.
The honours list published for the Queen's birthday in 2004 specified that Frederick Anderson Goodwin was knighted "for services to banking".
And in his official briefing about the Sir Fred's gong, then PM Tony Blair's spokesman explained that "he undertook many challenging projects that benefited both his company and the Scottish economy as a whole".
Ms Harman, who has been by far the most outspoken Cabinet critic of Sir Fred's £700,000-a-year pension deal, was challenged about the honour by Plaid Cymru Westminster leader Elfyn LLwyd.
Asked who had put him forward and why, she told him: "I think Sir Fred was nominated for a knighthood because of his services for the Prince's Trust. I understand it was not in recognition of his services to banking."
But immediately after the Question Time session, she was forced to correct her blunder, and in a statement, her office said: "The leader of the House is happy to correct what she said at Prime Minister's Questions regarding Sir Fred Goodwin's knighthood.
"It was, in fact, the case that he received his honour for services to banking but no doubt his contribution to the Prince's Trust would also have been taken into account."
Reader views (14)
It's not a 'blunder'. It was a quite deliberate and emphasised statement to the House. Take a look at the recording of PMQs.
- Chuck Unsworth, London UK, 04/03/2009 21:39
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They are all lying through their teeth. If they did not carry out Due Diligence they are at the very least a bunch of incompetents.
- James, Braintree UK, 04/03/2009 18:54
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Myners must go !!!
- Frank, London, 04/03/2009 18:37
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Why do we have these un-elected idiots in power?!??
- Jacqueline, Hampstead, London, 04/03/2009 18:17
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Whatever is in the air in France to dull perceptions? Graham Moore should undertsand that the calls for a general election in the UK are not because we envisage Gordon Brown being replaced by Harriet Harman. We wish to get rid of both the inadequate and the incompetent.
- James Elliott, Eastbourne UK, 04/03/2009 17:28
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What does one expect from a dumn cluck like Harriet Har-person. Does not make one feel confident about New Labour abilities. - Oops! I forgot that have always been incompetent and fiscally incontintent.
- Uncle Vanya, East Anglia Area UK, 04/03/2009 17:25
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I hear peoples comments about the need for a general election, but quite seriously why replace inadequate with incompetence.
- Graham Moore, Castelnau de montmiral, France, 04/03/2009 15:54
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The reason why so much time is being spent on Goodwin is that it suits the government to do so. While everyone is concentrating on him, no one is concentrating on Gordon Brown's failures as Chancellor and then Prime Minister to put in place the regulatory controls required, and which he purposely relaxed. So carry on with whining about Goodwin and do Brown's job for him.
- Stephen Rothbart, Prague Czech Republic, 04/03/2009 13:08
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Well said, Malcolm. In the private sector, any "takeover" would only happen after detailed due diligence work, and it would be standard practice to request details of pension arrangements and any special terms for senior employees - in particular the likely cost of such arrangements! It is up to the company taking over (in this case the Government) to satisy themselves on such issues, based on information made available to them, and to ask for clarifiication if anything is unclear. Lord Myners has been telling pension scheme trustees for years how they should run the schemes, so I find it VERY hard to believe that he claims not to have known that there would have been an element of discretion in the amount of pension awarded.
- Jane, Dorking, 04/03/2009 10:40
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The labour government have totally failed the taxpayers of this country. A general election is required urgently to get them out PDQ.
- David, Fleet UK, 04/03/2009 09:44
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This is starting to sound more and more like the collapse of HIH in Australia a few years ago. CEOs and directors taking large amounts out of the business hours before collapse!!! They have been successfully prosecuted here for various failings including breach of fiduciary duties. Perhaps the FSA should do the same as ASIC?
- Australian, Australia, 04/03/2009 03:30
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It now seems obvious: if RBS had dismissed him, then he would have been paid 12 months salary in compensation (perhaps a little more). This would have caused significant political embarrassment. By asking him to retire this was avoided at the cost of an enhanced pension: i.e. greater expense today but embarrassment deferred or maybe avoided. Given politian’s “short termism” they choose the former.
However, what is surprising was leaking the story – via that Treasury month piece Preston. Perhaps they though it would distract the public from the catastrophic failure of the FSA to regulate RBS as showed by RBS’s results. Perhaps they believed Brown still had some authority, and that Goodwin would do as he was told – it would have been a victory! But Brown doesn’t have any authority left, and this incident has left him looking petulant and impotent.
- Dick, Clapham, 03/03/2009 18:09
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Britain could have avoided invading Iraq but this didn't happen either!
- Fraser, Telford Park, 03/03/2009 17:53
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So we now know "the Government was informed at the time of the rough size of the pension pot" but "What the Government was not told was that this payment was in any way discretionary." Lord Myners was not a career politician, but brought in by Gordon Brown for his extensive knowledge of business and the City. As such he would have beemn fully aware of the discretionary nature of many Executive pension arrangments. It was NOT up to the RBS board to TELL the government, it was up to the Government to ASK for full details of the package BEFORE it pumped billions of taxpayers money into the Bank.
- Malcolm, London, 03/03/2009 14:48
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