The Treasury faces a potentially embarrassing court battle in October over its alleged failure to impose minimum environmental and human-rights standards on investments made by Royal Bank of Scotland, the state-owned lender.

Three campaign groups – World Development Movement (WDM), Platform and People & Planet – have won a full hearing over whether the Treasury has breached its own policy to tackle climate change and reduce carbon emissions by using public funds to bail out RBS, which has long been one of the biggest lenders to the energy industry.