Lloyds condemned as 200 more jobs go

Banking giant Lloyds came under attack today for announcing another 200 job losses, mainly in its insurance division.

The part-nationalised group has now axed 26,200 jobs, saying today's cuts are part of its "ongoing integration programme".

A statement said: "Lloyds Banking Group is committed to working through these changes with employees in a careful and sensitive way.

"All affected employees have been briefed by their line manager today. The group's union partners were consulted prior to this announcement and will continue to be consulted throughout the process.

"The group's policy is always to use natural turnover and to redeploy people wherever possible to retain their expertise and knowledge within the group. By making less use of contractors and agency employees it reduces the impact on permanent staff.

"Where it is necessary for employees to leave the company, it will look to achieve this by offering voluntary severance. Compulsory redundancies will always be a last resort.

"The overwhelming majority of role reductions has been achieved through redeployment, natural turnover, closing vacancies, expiry of temporary contracts and voluntary redundancy."

David Fleming, national officer of the Unite union, said: "Unite is calling on the new boss of Lloyds Banking Group, Antonio Horta-Osorio, to step in and stop these 200 jobs being cut.

"It is inexcusable that, while he is one of the best-paid executives in Britain with a pay package of £8.3 million a year, staff earning an average salary of less then £20,000 are joining the dole queues.

"Lloyds Banking Group has already cut over 21,000 jobs, yet the boss of this taxpayer-supported company has yet to intervene to ensure those working hard to make the bank successful are not simply discarded. He needs to ensure there are fundamental changes on his watch."

Unite said the job losses will be from group operations, general insurance and wholesale, in Chester, Leicester, Edinburgh, Newport, Copley, West Yorkshire and Shannon.