RBS: Just one in 10 people support sale of bailed-out bank, predicted to cost taxpayers £28.5bn

'As well as representing terrible value for money, selling off RBS now would be a totally wasted opportunity to reform Britain’s broken banking model', says Fran Boait of Positive Money

Fewer than one in 10 people think the UK government should sell its majority stake in Royal Bank of Scotland in the near future, a survey has found. A similarly small proportion think the bank would serve the public interest if it returns to private hands.

YouGov research commissioned by campaign group Positive Money found that a third of respondents support running RBS as a nationalised bank rather than selling it back to investors.

The government has been selling its shares since 2015, and plans to fully return the bank to private ownership by 2024. It is predicted to lose £28.5bn on the sale, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility.

The new poll found that a third believe the government should hold onto its 62.3 per cent stake for a year or more in the hope that the value of the shares in the bank recover, and then they can sell it for a higher price later on.

At 242p per share, RBS is valued at less than half the price the government paid in a 2008 bailout. RBS turned an annual profit for the first time in a decade in 2017 and last year paid a dividend for the first time since the financial crisis but their is little indication that the bank is likely to return to its former value any time soon.

The polling comes ahead of RBS’ latest annual results on Friday, after which the Government is said to be considering a partial sell-down of its stake.

Positive Money launched a public petition this week demanding the government cancels any further sale of RBS shares, and keeps the bank under public ownership with a mission to serve the public interest.

Fran Boait, executive director of Positive Money, said: “As well as representing terrible value for money, selling off RBS now would be a totally wasted opportunity to reform Britain’s broken banking model. Doing so would show that the government has no interest in creating better banks that serve the public interest, ten years on from greed-driven banks being bailed out after they crashed our economy.

“The power that banks like RBS have over our economy means that they should be held responsible to the public they profit from. But as our polling shows, the majority of people recognise that a privatised RBS would fail to work in the public interest.

“Instead of pushing ahead with this ideologically motivated sell-off, the Government has an opportunity to ensure that in the future RBS works in the public interest. A huge number of improvements are possible, from shifting its lending towards SMEs, to expanding access to banking services in communities which are currently under-served.”

A Treasury spokesperson said private investors, not taxpayers, should bear the risk of companies such as RBS. "But we will only sell RBS shares when it represents value for money for the taxpayer.”

An RBS spokesperson said: “The timing and price of any government share sale is a matter for the Treasury. Our focus continues to be on building a bank that delivers for shareholders, customers and the UK economy.”