Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, for what reasons details of the latest sale of Government held shares in Lloyds Banking Group were not published by UK Financial Investments.

On 17 December 2014 the Chancellor authorised the sale of a third part of the government’s shareholding in Lloyds Banking Group via a trading plan. The plan is ongoing and will end no later than 30 June 2015. Morgan Stanley act as broker on behalf of HM Treasury to execute the trading plan.

Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) rules require HMG as seller to inform the market each time its shareholding has crossed through a one percentage point threshold, which is typically released via RNS by the company. Lloyds have therefore released two such statements since the launch of the trading plan, on 23 February and 9 March 2015. These contain details of the government’s remaining shareholding in Lloyds. On both occasions, the government released a statement confirming these announcements.

On 9 March 2015 the government confirmed that the total amount of money raised through the trading plan was over £1bn and that the government’s shareholding in Lloyds had fallen below 23%.

As I informed the House in my written statement on 18 December, a statement will be laid before Parliament with further details at the end of the plan. In order to get the best deal for the taxpayer, I will not provide a running commentary on the price of shares and the precise number sold while the trading plan is ongoing. However, the Chancellor has made clear that no shares will be sold below the average price the previous government paid for them (i.e. 73.6p).