TIMES ONLINE: The chairman of Britain’s biggest state-owned bank has defended multimillion-pound salaries for senior staff, despite widespread objections.
Sir Philip Hampton told the BBC Today programme that although banking sector remuneration was “astonishingly high”, staff at Royal Bank of Scotland would leave unless they were paid the market rate.
Politicians in each of the main parties have called for caps on bankers’ bonuses and Sir Philip — whose bank is 83 per cent owned by the taxpayer — has a difficult task in persuading the public that they are justified.
Sir Philip conceded that it was difficult to defend the pay gap between most people and some bank staff, but he told the BBC: “If we don’t pay our top people, they leave very quickly. Our top people are very much in demand and we have seen a significant loss of our top people.” RBS chief Sir Philip Hampton defends 'astonishingly high' bankers’ pay >>> Helen Power | Friday, April 30, 2010
