Downing Street Says » Lloyds/HBOS Merger

» Monday, February 16, 2009

Lloyds/HBOS Merger

Asked whether the Prime Minister agreed with David Cameron that the Lloyds/HBOS merger now looked like a mistake and whether he has any regrets about the speed in which it was put through, the PMS replied that he did not agree with this at all. The Prime Minister took the view that he took in September, that this merger was in the wider interests and stability of the UK financial system. The idea for the merger originally came from the companies involved who approached the Government to ask us to change competition legislation in order to enable it to happen. The Government did that with cross-party support at the time. The Prime Minister remained of the view that this merger was in the wider interests of the stability of UK financial system and the question is what would the alternative have been had Lloyds not taken over HBOS at that time? It would have been almost certainly that HBOS would have found it very difficult to continue and that would have meant the Government and the taxpayer intervening to support the totality of HBOS.

Asked whether the Government was making contingency plans for the nationalisation of HBOS, the PMS replied that as Steven Timms had made clear this morning, while of course nothing is ruled out, there was no active consideration being given to the nationalisation of Lloyds.

1 Comment »

How can Hbos justify repossessing peoples homes and giving huge amounts to thier staff to improve thier homes with our money
Comment by b.phillips — 16 Feb 2009 on 10:17 pm | Link

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