Four of the men at the centre of the British banking crisis will appear before MPs today as their role in the near-collapse of the sector is examined.

Appearing before the Treasury select committee today are three former bosses at two banks bailed out by the taxpayer – Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS).

Former RBS chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin and his HBOS ex-counterpart Andy Hornby will both be facing questions, as will former HBOS chairman Lord Stevenson and Sir Tim McKillop, who stepped from his chairmanship of RBS last week.

The banks’ exposure to toxic debts at the time of a global slowdown saw the government bailout both, with the taxpayer owning a 70 per cent in RBS and 43 per cent in the Lloyds Banking Group, which swallowed HBOS during the credit crisis.

The part-nationalised banks are already facing intense scrutiny after it emerged many would continue to pay bonuses to staff, claiming they were contractually obligated.

Gordon Brown has demanded no one be rewarded for failure, but attempts by the Conservatives to mimic a bonus-ceiling imposed in the US by Barack Obama have been rejected by the government.

In Whitehall today MPs on the committee, led by John McFall, will attempt to elicit apologies from the bankers and get them to admit their mistakes; or at least compel them to explain where the blame does lie.

They are likely to be asked questions over their qualifications to manage the banks, if they understood the toxic mortgage-backed securities their firms invested in and whether they plan to return multimillion pound bonuses received before the crisis struck.

As well as a hostile committee of MPs, the bankers will also be faced with union protests outside Portcullis house.

Workers from insurance and banking firms will be at Portcullis House brandishing placards reading: “Remember us? You’ve put our jobs at risk!”

“These senior bankers have brought the UK’s financial services industry to its knees without any acknowledgement of the misery that they have caused the hard-working staff in the sector,” said Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of Unite.

“Unite members across the country will no-longer stand by as the staggering greed and excesses of those at the top of this industry compromises the position of dedicated finance workers, who deserve fair pay.

“The Treasury select committee must ask tough questions of these ‘masters of disaster’ who have yet to be held to account on their role in the current financial crisis.

“There is public anger that these executives are continuing to receive what President Obama called ‘shameful’ bonuses. Yet workers face uncertainty that their jobs are at risk.”

Following today’s appearances before the Treasury committee, bosses from Barclays, Lloyds TSB, Abbey and HSBC will also face questions tomorrow.