FORMER bank chief Sir Fred “The Shred” Goodwin faced mounting pressure yesterday to come clean over his privacy injunction.

Politicians demanded to know whether the “private matter” the ex-RBS boss is guarding with a gagging order had any bearing on the bank’s disastrous collapse.

Sir Fred, 52, dubbed “The Shred” for his ruthless culling of staff, ran the Royal Bank of Scotland into the ground.

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The bank was bailed out by the taxpayer to the tune of £45billion, while Sir Fred picked up a £340,000-a-year pension and a £2.7million lump sum.

Lib Dem MP John Hemming said: “We need to know whether the issue behind the injunction had any impact on Sir Fred’s judgment. Did he take his eye off the ball while running RBS? Has a lot of public money been spent on something that was affected by this issue?”

Mr Hemming has given a copy of the court order to the Treasury select committee to see if its contents are relevant. He added: “This adds to the pressure on Sir Fred to come clean.” Mr Hemming, who has a meeting with the Speaker of the House of Commons on the issue today, used parliamentary privilege in March to name the ex-banker as the man who went to court to stop the media referring to his former role. The move led to questions about the nature of the court order.

Lib Dem Lord Oakeshott also used parliamentary privilege to ask about Sir Fred’s injunction in the House of Lords this week and yesterday Tory MP Louise Bagshawe called for him to confess its contents.

She said: “There is a public interest in Sir Fred Goodwin because of the huge pension he was given and the honour he was given. It would be a good idea if he followed Andrew Marr’s example.”

TV host Marr revealed earlier this week that he had been granted a super-injunction to conceal an extra-marital affair.