THE government’s sale of a 7.7 per cent stake in the Royal Bank of Scotland was condemned yesterday by the bank staff’s union Unite.

UK Government Investments confirmed the sell-off on Monday, reducing the public holding in the bank to 62.4 per cent.

Unite national officer Rob MacGregor said that the sale — at a loss of £2 billion in the value of shares bought by the British taxpayer in the bank’s 2008 bailout — is “a betrayal of public finances.”