Barclays has revealed a full-year profit for 2009 of £11.6bn, an increase of 92% on 2008, a figure boosted by the sale of its BGI fund management arm to US firm BlackRock last year.

Speaking on today's programme the BBC's business editor Robert Peston said that the bank had made an underlying profit of around £5.5bn.

He added that the extent to which this "good year" was the result of exceptional help given to the bank by the government remains unclear. "The question now," he added, "is whether or not this level of profit is sustainable or is a mini-bubble".

The Liberal Democrats' treasury spokesman, Vince Cable repeated his call for banks' retail and investment arms to be split

And he said that Barclays "should be paying a levy to the British government, a form of insurance fee on the guarantee the British taxpayer provides".