The Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive has been accused of withholding information from MPs investigating the bank’s mistreatment of small businesses.
In a frosty exchange with Nicky Morgan, the Treasury committee chair, Ross McEwan rejected the suggestion that he had misled MPs at an evidence session into heavily criticised practices at the lender’s Global Restructuring Group.
Hostilities could yet be resumed at a new evidence session, after Morgan said the committee was considering recalling McEwan to “tell the whole truth”.
The dispute arose after McEwan told the committee in January that he was unaware of any suspected criminal activity at the bank, in response to a question by Alister Jack MP.
It later emerged that an employee of the bank’s controversial GRG unit was the subject of a criminal investigation by Police Scotland.
In a letter last month to Morgan, a Conservative MP, McEwan explained the omission by saying that the case “did not relate” to the subject of the hearing, a four-year investigationby the Financial Conduct Authority into the activity of GRG.
McEwan said the bank “would entirely reject the suggestion that the committee may have been in any way misled by the evidence that I gave”.
But, in a response to McEwan sent this week, Morgan described his explanation as “unconvincing”.
“It considers that your response to Mr Jack’s question fell short of that standard, since you withheld information of relevance and interest.”
She also criticised the tone of the letter, in particular McEwan’s rejection of the notion that he misled the committee.
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