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Minister who said yes to Fred has £4m RBS pension
Paul Waugh05.03.09
Embattled City Minister Paul Myners was plunged into a fresh row today as it emerged that he had a £4million pension with links to Royal Bank of Scotland.
He was facing fresh questions over the fact that he had a transferable pension from RBS subsidiary NatWest in 1999.
The peer was a director at NatWest bank after it bought out his fund management group Gartmore in 1996.
NatWest's 1999 accounts state that Lord Myners had a "transferable" pension of £242,000. If usual pension multiples are applied, that means Lord Myners is entitled to a pension pot of more than £4 million.
Chancellor Alistair Darling is to appear before MPs later this month and is sure to be quizzed about his minister's connections to RBS and his role in the approval of Sir Fred Goodwin's £16 million pension deal.
The 60-year-old City minister is drawing an annual pension of £99,800 from Gartmore, where he worked for 16 years and was chief executive.
Gartmore was briefly owned by RBS before it was sold off in 2000.
Mr Darling has agreed to appear before the Treasury Select Committee on 19 March.
Aides to Lord Myners, who was heavily involved in the Government's bail-out of RBS last Octo ber, insist there was no conflict of interest because his Gartmore pension has "no link whatsoever" to his role in the bank rescue or the controversy over Sir Fred's pension.
One said that Gartmore continued to manage his pension even after being bought by NatWest.
The link to Gartmore, but not to NatWest, is mentioned in Lord Myners' Lords register of interests. It lists his benefits but does not disclose how much her receives.
Lord Myners was persuaded by Gordon Brown to join the Government last year shortly before the £37 billion bank bail-out. He does not draw a ministerial salary.
The peer was the Government's only representative at discussions with RBS directors over the pay-off for Sir Fred last October.
No civil servants were present when he was informed the RBS chief executive would get a "substantial" pension.
The Government has been accused by the Tories of manufacturing "synthetic" anger over Sir Fred's £700,000-a-year pension in a bid to deflect attention from its own close links to the disgraced banker.
Lord Myners insists that he did not "approve" Sir Fred's deal during a frantic weekend of negotiations to secure his departure from RBS.
But it emerged this week that he was told that the pension would be "substantial" and knew days after the deal that it was worth up to £20 million.
Yet the Treasury says it only discovered on 19 February that RBS had voluntarily allowed Sir Fred to retire early at 50, a move that nearly doubled his annual pension.
Tories have claimed that Lord Myners either approved the deal with a "nod and a wink" or showed "bumbling incompetence" in failing to question the pension package.
The peer lost his boardroom job at NatWest when the bank was bought out by RBS in 2000. Sir Fred described last year's bank bail-out as a "drive by shooting" by the Government.
Michael Fallon, Tory vice-chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, told the Evening Standard today: "Paul Myners has to answer questions about his own pension.
"He was a NatWest director for three years and the bank's accounts show he had a transferable pension. Yet he was the man who negotiated Fred Goodwin's pension with RBS."
Reader views (17)
Is there ANTONE left in the financial services industry, House of Lords, House of Commons, FSA who has a grain of decency and integrity?
- Joannie, London, England
If this is true, it shows how deep within the heart of our economic and democratic structures the rot lies.
We desperately need to work out how to restore the entire edifice of our national social, political and economic life that has been corrupted, distorted and devestated by the rampant greed unleashed these last thirty years.
Unless we make some radical and profound changes to the way our society organises itself pretty damn quick there may not be much of it left to salvage at this rate.
- Barrie, essex UK
We have the cheeck to condemn other countries for corruption, and yet, here we have the perfect example of how to do it an get away with it. It's a disgrace but no matter how many on-line forums you express this view on, NOTHING will change until, we, like the French, take to the streets to protest in our millions.
- Maya, London
I wonder what Senor Chavez would make of all this sleaze and what would be his reaction. European nations too, must be amused at what is going on in this once very correct and regulated country.
T H Leeds
- Thomas Hayes, Leeds UK
Of course he does, all these rich socialists spending our money for us.
It makes me sick these scummy left-liberal idiots, corrupt, incompetent and greedy. Labour are an absolute disgrace.
- Frank, Home Counties, England.
No chance of failure not being rewarded...look at Mandelson,Blair,Blunkett.If our politicians need to lie to get money look at Conway,Harman,Hain .... the list is endless.
- P Doff, filey yorks
now there's a surprise. it's never what you know, but who.
backscratchers of the world unite.
- M.O'Brien, london.uk
Another greedy snout in the trough, between the greedy bankers, even greedier MP's and Lords the tax payer is being screwed by these parasites. Myners has shown how incompetent he is by allowing that other shyster Fred the shred to pocket £30million at our expense whilst he now trousers another £4million from what is now a semi state bank and he'll no doubt be handsomely rewarded for his incompetence as city minister.
Makes you want to puke!
- Ed, Hants
Shock horror, Lord Myners paid tax to the same Treasury as Fred Goodwin, surely this should be investigated as another tenuous link?
- Tom, Watford (UK)
A case of not what you know, but who you know!
- Wa, Oxfordshire, UK
Jobs for the Boys.Can the Public ever win or trust anyone.
- Harvey Lawrence, London UK
Brown said: "THERE SHOULD BE NO REWARD FOR FAILURE".
Good!
- Reuben Camara, Morecambe/Lancaster
This is all fascinating stuff! Isn't it wonderful how these snippets of information gradually emerge? No wonder the public has become so cynical. Most of us have good reason to be concerned about our future pensions and face having to work till we are 70 before we get it. We are obviously all in the wrong job.
- Jan, London
It's the U scratch my back and I'll scratch yours LLP in action. If Sir Fred's pension agreement can't be undone, sue Lord M and the RBS Board members involved for breach of fiduciary duty.
- Bloke, London
They are all in it together scratching each other’s backs. How many ministers will get future jobs with the banks with large pensions.
- Mick, London, England
Another totally objective arbitrator appointed by this government....
- Helen, norwich
The old boys club yet again.Lets see some ministers sacked and their pensions etc removed.Same old 'New Labour'
- Mike, London England
