Cable calls for RBS to be split up

Business secretary Vince Cable has called for the Royal Bank of Scotland to be split up, in a letter leaked to the BBC.

In a letter dated February 8 to Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Cable proposed caving out a "British business bank" from RBS which supports firms and instills confidence that lending will not be pulled from businesses. "My suggestion is that we recognise that RBS will not return to the market in its current shape and use its time as ward of state to carve out of it a British business bank with a clean balance sheet and a mandate to expand lending rapidly to sound business," the letter read. The banking crisis continues to constrict lending to the wid...