RBS reviews business lending after finding £20bn surplus "There is a disconnect between what the bank says it is doing on lending, and what many businesses say they experience on the ground," said Sir Andrew. It's great to see RBS proactively working with their business customers this way. It's in everyone's best interest that the right lending decisions are made, and this process should help RBS do just that," said Robert Downes of the Forum of Private Business. RBS has been at the centre of a political storm in the last month after its chief executive Stephen Hester was effectively forced out of his job because he refused to commit himself to stay with the lender until its privatisation is complete. Speaking on Tuesday, Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, warned the government's handling of Mr Hester's departure had been "very poor and destabilising." The appearance that it happened because of a political intervention is damaging. It will be harder and take longer to be where we want to be, which is RBS off the Government books and back in the private sector," said Mr Balls. George Osborne, the Chancellor, immediately hit back at the accusations. It's good to get a lesson from Ed [Balls] in getting too involved in the management of RBS. Fortunately our pass was sold on that front when I was shadow chancellor," said Mr Osborne. As well as Mr Hester's departure, RBS is also having to contend with the possibility of its forced break up after the Chancellor confirmed last month that the government would be looking at whether there was a case for separating the lender into a "good bank" and a "bad bank." Investment bank Rothschild has been hired to advise the government on RBS's possible separation, which was among the recommendations in a report published last month by the cross-party Commission on Banking Standards. I think the decisions taken about RBS to look seriously at the bad assets in RBS and whether it would be right to create a bad bank - ones which many free marketeers have advocated - is a sensible approach. I don't think I would be doing my job properly if I said I had no interest in two of our largest institutions in the country where we have tens of billions invested," said Mr Osborne.