Osborne: RBS are cleaning up the mess after the bailout

Chancellor George Osborne defends RBS in reaction to the news of the taxpayer-owned bank doubling its loses in 2011:

"The new management team at RBS are cleaning up the mess after the biggest bank bailout in history, just as the government is cleaning up the system of bank regulation that failed so badly. These results show that they are doing just that.

"We have made clear that RBS should be a backmarker in the industry when it comes to pay, so it's right that bonuses at the investment bank are less than half what they were last year and less than a third of what they were in 2009,

"But our main interest should be to get back as much money as possible for taxpayers and we must not let those that want to create an anti-business culture put that at risk."