Prime minister David Cameron has asked Royal Bank of Scotland workers to “show restraint” when accepting staff rewards.

Chief executive of the business Stephen Hester rejected his bonus of £963,000 in shares at the weekend after the Labour Party said it would take the issue to a Commons vote.

Addressing reporters at yesterday’s EU summit in Brussels, Cameron urged the institution to be responsible when offering employee benefits to other top personnel.

His comments came after business secretary Vince Cable said “more generally in the banking sector we have got to see more of a sense of perspective”.

Despite this, however, Downing Street has said it will not be taking any direct action to ensure the bonuses given to other senior executives in the institution are lower.

The Royal Bank of Scotland is 82 per cent publicly owned, which is one of the reasons the issue of large staff rewards has been contentious.

Mr Cameron said he wanted the financial services provider to link pay to performance when it comes to bonuses.

Reacting to Mr Hester’s waiving of his bonus, national officer at Unite David Fleming said yesterday: “This gesture goes some way to acknowledging the hypocrisy of an organisation which has sacked over 21,000 staff while still attempting to pay bumper bonuses to the bosses.”

The Guardian suggested Barclays chief executive could be next in the spotlight, with rumours the top employee will be offered £10 million.

It was recently suggested in a High Pay Commission report that tackling employee benefits considered to be excessive is in the public interest because such high bonuses are a marker of a certain type of capitalism that favours monopolies rather than entrepreneurs.

The body said wealth has been moving toward the top 0.1 per cent and regulations such as forced transparency over pay could help redress the balance.