Sir Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, was this morning grilled by an influential parliamentary committee over his role at the now semi-nationalised UK bank. He faced the Treasury Committee alongside his former chairman Sir Tom McKillop, who quit his post three months ahead of schedule last week, and their former counterparts at HBOS, which was taken over by Lloyds TSB this year.

Within hours of the Treasury committee hearing RBS announced a fresh round of job cuts that could involve the loss of as many as 2,300 positions. A spokesman for RBS confirmed the cuts are focused on RBS UK, the group's UK retail, business and commercial banking operation. The cuts, which are subject to UK employee consultation procedures, will come from central support functions rather than client-facing roles.