Almost £215bn of Lloyds £260bn toxic dump on state can be tracked to HBOS

The first of a double whammy on the Scottish taxpayer is our share of the debt burden of £260 billion of toxic ‘assets’ (as expensive mistakes are known in the upside-down world that is banking) that Lloyds have just dumped on the state for ‘insurance’.

The second hit is on pride rather than pocket. It is the traceability of around 5/6ths of this debt to HBOS – or what we still think of as the Bank of Scotland. This amounts to around£215 billion.

And in doing this neat transfer, Lloyds have arranged a valuable bonus not given to RBS in its own dump of £365 billion on the ‘state asset protection scheme’. In exchange for its generosity in this ‘asset’ insurance, Lloyds has negotiated a tax concession likely to cost the exchequer at least £7 billion in lost corporation tax.

The deal is that Lloyds ‘pays’ (and yes, this is no more a payment than the ‘assets’ are assets) the Government £15.6 billion as its insurance premium to protect the £260 billion of assets now lodged in the ‘scheme’ (now there’s an accurate word).

Lloyd’s will then be responsible for the first £25 billion of any – inevitable – losses but will be allowed to offset these losses against taxable income, a revenue loss to the exchequer of £7 billion.

Lloyds will also bear 10% of losses over £25 billion, with the state carrying the other 90%.

And the ‘paynent’ that isn’t a payment? Well, it’s payment in kind. Lloyds is giving the Government new ‘B’ shares in the bank with the right to convert these later into ordinary shares.

Quite how £15.6 billion can be translated to any particualr number of Lloyds ‘B’ shares in today’s gravity-affected market in banking shares is another matter.