• Labour leader steps up attack on excessive bank bonuses
• Rachel Reeves wants bonuses taxed to fund jobs for the young
Labour will seek to put the government under greater pressure to tackle bankers' "excessive" bonuses today by calling for the money to be diverted to help unemployed young people.
The party hopes to seize on the controversy of reports that the RBS chief executive Stephen Hester is to receive up to a £1.6m bonus from the government-controlled bank in the same week that a record high of 1.04 million jobless young people was announced.
On Sunday, Ed Miliband called for Hester to be stripped of his bonus altogether. "Taxpayers are still footing the bill for what's happening at the Royal Bank of Scotland," the Labour leader told BBC Radio 5 Live's Pienaar's Politics.
"If responsibility means anything, I don't think he should be getting his bonus. And the prime minister, if he's true to his word, would exercise his responsibility to do something about that."
Rachel Reeves, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, speaking before a Labour-led Commons debate this afternoon, said that David Cameron's promises to rein in excessive bonuses have been "just warm words" because multi-million-pound bonuses are to be paid out even at banks where the share price has almost halved.
"There are now a record number of young people out of work, with the number of young people on the dole for more than six months doubling since this time last year," she said.
Ministers should be "compelled" to rethink their economic plans, she said, calling on the coalition to repeat Labour's tax on bank bonuses to fund 100,000 jobs for young people.
"We need a change of course from this government, whose failing economic plan is leading to £158bn more borrowing than planned," she added.
Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, also called for an end to big bonus payouts for Hester and other RBS executives, but remained sceptical about reports that the RBS boss was in line for an award of £1.5m. Various figures in excess of £1m were being bandied about yesterday.
"You are asking me about a hypothetical outcome that I don't believe will arise," he told BBC1's The Andrew Marr Show.
He said the government's ability to influence bonus payments at RBS – which is 83%-owned by the government – was "constrained" as a result of contractual arrangements entered into by the last Labour government.
However, he made it clear that ministers expected the overall bonus pool at the bank to be "considerably lower" than it was last year. "We have been very, very clear that in RBS – and, for that matter, in other banks – the bonus pool has got to be considerably lower than it was last year," he said.
"The Bank of England, the Financial Services Authority, are saying exactly the same thing because any money that is spare should, where possible, be used to repair the banks' balance sheets."
Clegg stressed no decisions had been taken yet on the bonuses at RBS. "There has been no agreement yet. There is an arm's-length body, the UKFI (UK Financial Investments), that represents our interests in these decisions and they haven't yet arrived at a decision on the RBS bonuses," he said.