The chief ex­ec­u­tive of Bar­clays bank, Antony Jenk­ins, is to waive his bonus for last year. He said it would be wrong for him to re­ceive a bonus, giv­en what had been a "dif­fi­cult" year for Bar­clays. It is thought Jenk­ins was in line to re­ceive about �1m of a po­ten­tial max­i­mum en­ti­tle­ment of �2.75m.

Mr Jenk­ins took over as chief ex­ec­u­tive last Au­gust, just as Bar­clays was be­ing rocked over mis-sell­ing scan­dals and oth­er is­sues. He said in a state­ment: "To avoid fur­ther un­nec­es­sary pub­lic de­bate on this mat­ter, I wish to make clear that I con­clud­ed ear­ly this week that I do not wish to be con­sid­ered for a bonus award for 2012 and I have com­mu­ni­cat­ed that de­ci­sion to the board.

George Os­borne says bankers need to be "sen­si­ble" about their pay. Jenk­ins' to­tal po­ten­tial pay pack­age, in­clud­ing pen­sion, ba­sic salary, and in­cen­tives, was �8.6m.