Lloyds Banking Group's chief financial officer, William Chalmers, has called the doubling of the bank surcharge "unhelpful", BM Magazine reports. He urged the government to keep the rise temporary. Lloyds is the first big bank to report results since the Budget.
The bank made statutory pre-tax profit of £2.33bn in the third quarter, against £1.17bn a year earlier, according to Investment House. The year-earlier figure was reduced by an extra £800m motor finance provision, the Scotsman reports. Underlying profit rose 83% to £2.37bn. Pre-tax profit for the first nine months of the year was £6.6bn, up 42%. Lloyds said it would still meet its financial targets for the year.
The Scotsman reports that the OBR expects the 15-month rise to raise an extra £1.5bn. Earlier reports of that figure did not say what period it covered. The surcharge goes from 3% to 6% from January 2027 and returns to 3% on 1 April 2028. That matches what the Chancellor, John Healey, told the Commons. HMRC figures show the surcharge raised £1bn in 2024-25.
Jeremy Hunt warned in his Budget response that the higher surcharge could lead to higher mortgage rates.