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Lord Myners 'knew about Sir Fred's deal and misled parliament'
Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor31 Mar 2009
CITY minister Lord Myners was under fresh pressure today after a senior banker accused him of misleading MPs over Sir Fred Goodwin's pension.
Former Royal Bank of Scotland chairman Sir Tom McKillop flatly contradicted Lord Myners's claim that he was unaware that Sir Fred was getting a £700,000-a-year early retirement deal.
In a letter to the Treasury select committee, Sir Tom said there was "no elaborate ruse" by him or other members of the RBS board to pay Sir Fred more than he was contractually entitled to.
He insisted that the minister was told last October that the pension pot would be increased as a result of Sir Fred's early retirement. Senior Tory MP Michael Fallon said that Sir Tom's evidence proved that Lord Myners had "misled Parliament".
Mr Fallon, who is the deputy chairman of the Treasury select committee, said that Lord Myners' s position looked "pretty untenable" and called on him to resign.
Mr Fallon told BBC Radio 4's The World At One: "It flatly contradicts him because he told our committee that he didn't get any information about the pension, he didn't ask for information and he wasn't told about it."
"On the contrary, Tom McKillop makes it clear that Lord Myners was told each detail of the pension.
"Misleading Parliament is a serious offence; misleading the public is even worse. The honourable thing to do now would be to resign."
Reader views (7)
Myners is just the fall guy for the real guilty parties i.e McClown and his chief spinmeister, Lord Mandlieson of Mendacity, twice disgraced crook and Archenemy of democracy.
Both of these self serving enemies of Britain knew full well that they had very limited powers to do anything meaningful about Goodwin & Co, so they hatched a plot to make it look as if they had been robustly dealt with hoping that they would then simply disappear.
Unfortunately for the duplicitous duo this little scam, like all of the others, has been rumbled.
- Keith Lonsdale, Doncaster, 01/04/2009 09:31
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If this is true then put him in jail and throw away the key!
Britain has had "quite enough" of this type of sleeziness!
- Fraser, Telford Park, 31/03/2009 23:51
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Resign - you must be kidding. The word does not exist in the Nu-Labour lexicon - what they do have is, 'draw a line under', 'learn lessons', 'move on', 'taking all the right decisions', 'hard-working families' and all the other Animal Farm speak.
- 45govt, Bridgetown, Barbados, 31/03/2009 22:50
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If he knew,you can bet that others in the Government knew as well.
Did Darling know,did Brown know,others in the Treasury,City Office ?
It could not have been a secret,so were we again being spun by the whiter than white government.
- Nigel, wimbledon, 31/03/2009 22:32
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Honourable? Labour? Of course Myners won't resign. He'll cling on as long as he can in order to keep feeding at the trough.
- Ian, London, 31/03/2009 18:55
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Yet another example of Brown defending the indefensible. Will he take any action - no he never does. He's the master avoider of issues and conflict.
- Cj, nottingham, 31/03/2009 18:03
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Lord Myners should resign immediately. He did not make one mistake in his evidence, he made a concerted effort to mislead. He contradicted himself and attempted to portray, Bob Scott, the senior non-exec., as a confused old fool.
As Fallon says, Myners attempted to mislead Parliament. This was not a single incident. He was at the Committee for hours and many days later, he writes to the Committee, still attempting to cover up his own mistakes.
- Investorvoice, London UK, 31/03/2009 17:57
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