WIDE-SCALE banking reforms backed by the Coalition Government will get taxpayers "off the hook" by making the bailed-out banks more self-reliant, the architect of the changes has claimed.

Sir John Vickers also said the Royal Bank of Scotland’s disastrous billion-pound takeover of Dutch bank ABN Amro, blamed by many for its spectacular downfall, might never have happened under the reforms.

But he was immediately hit with criticism that his plans, which will not be implemented in full until 2019, would be too little, too late.

The main banks’ shares also fell in the aftermath of the report. This led to speculation the Treasury would be forced to delay any sell-off of its bank shares, hitting Tory hopes of a “giveaway” pre-election budget in 2015.

But the reforms unveiled yesterday would make banks more self-reliant and get taxpayers “right off the hook”, Sir John said.

Under the plans, banks will have to build a firewall between their high street and investment, or “casino”, arms.

It would make it “easier and less costly to resolve banks that get into trouble” without taxpayers’ help, the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB) led by Sir John said.

They will also have to hold at least 10% of their assets as capital, higher than the 7% recommended internationally.

Sir John said: “If you had the kind of ring-fencing that we are proposing, if you had the loss absorbing capacity being much greater, so that there is more capacity there -- instead of this thin wafer (capacity) that got eaten through so quickly -- for a start, I don’t think RBS would have been able to do the merger it did ... so the damage would have been much, much better contained.”

The plans would cost UK banks between £4 to £7 billion a year, but Sir John said the sums were miniscule in comparison to the costs of a full bail-out.

An opinion poll for ITV News last night revealed three quarters of the public think they do not go far enough -- and that high-street and investment banking should be completely separate.

Chancellor George Osborne, the Tory Chancellor, backed the timeline as he said the Government would implement the plans. Shadow chancellor Ed Balls called on ministers “to legislate rapidly” to prevent another crisis.

Stewart Hosie, the SNP’s Treasury spokesperson, said: “We must have urgent assurances that the banks and the UK Government will not drag their heels over this and the eight year hiatus between the publication of today’s report and the final implementation of recommendations will not be a green light for business as usual and the return to big money bonuses while growth in the real economy continues to stutter.”

Liz Cameron, chief executive of Scottish Chambers of Commerce, said small businesses “are already struggling to access finance; in implementing these reforms, banks and Government must have regard to the wider economy and the ability of banks to play their role in enabling businesses to grow.”

The British Bankers’ Association (BBA), warned that the reforms could affect the wider recovery.