Lloyds CEO Charlie Nunn latest banking boss in line for huge bonus hike
Lloyds Banking Group boss, Charlie Nunn, could be in line for a maximum annual pay packet worth more than £13m, as he becomes the latest boss to benefit from the UK’s controversial decision to lift a cap on banker bonuses.The bank’s remuneration committee has begun drafting a new three-year executive pay policy that, for the first time, will take advantage of looser pay rules that have sent potential payouts soaring at rival banks.That includes Barclays, where chief executive, CS Venkatakrishnan, was handed a 45% rise in maximum pay last year, giving him the chance to be paid up to £14.3m if he hits important business targets.HSBC similarly offered a 43% increase to boss Georges Elhedery, for a maximum payout of about £15m.
Meanwhile, NatWest Group chief, Paul Thwaite, can now receive up to £7,7m for a single year’s work after shareholders approved a 43% increase in his maximum pay package last year,If Lloyds follows suit and proposes a 45% rise in maximum pay for Nunn, he will be in line for a potential pay package worth up to £13,2m,The prospective sum, which would be put to a shareholder vote at its annual general meeting this spring, would be up from a current maximum pay offer of £9.
1m.Like rivals, Lloyds hinted last year that its pay policy would probably entail a “significantly reduced” fixed salary for Nunn, to make up for a “higher performance-related variable reward opportunity”, after the government’s decision to lift the banker bonus cap.The cap, which was introduced in 2014, limited bonuses to two times a banker’s salary, was meant to stamp out the kind of risky behaviour that was blamed for causing the 2008 financial crisis.The hope was that, with less of an individual’s pay riding on performance, there would be fewer incentives for risky behaviour that ultimately destabilised the financial system and led to a near-decade of economic austerity.But critics, including some cost-conscious banks, complained that banks merely ended up inflating salaries to make up for lost earnings potential.
They also said it gave banks less control over pay, meaning they had fewer levers to hike or slash bonus pots based on financial performance each year,The former Tory chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng used post-Brexit rules to call for the banker bonus cap to be scrapped in 2022,UK regulators, under pressure to make the City more attractive to financial services firms, repealed the cap as part of post-Brexit rules a year later,The London Stock Exchange and City lobby groups including the influential UK capital markets industry taskforce have claimed higher pay is important for luring top talent and US businesses to Britain,Advocates have pointed to the exponentially larger pay packets offered in the US, including on Wall Street, where JP Morgan paid its chief executive Jamie Dimon, $39m (£29m) last year.
And shareholders have largely heeded the call, approving big pay rises that would have been unheard of in the 2010s, when shareholders rebelled over pay and called for a more measured approach by company executives after the 2008 financial crisis.However, the UK’s largest asset managers in November warned pay committees against simply matching rivals’ pay rises, which may give Lloyds shareholders reason to pause.A Lloyds Banking Group spokesperson said the lender would present its new pay policy proposals to shareholders later this year: “As set out in our annual report last year, the proposals will reflect market developments and regulatory changes, maintaining an approach that reinforces the connection between performance and reward.“Overall, the new policy will align with new regulatory requirements, while offering competitive remuneration that appropriately rewards delivery of long-term value for customers and shareholders.”All eyes will now turn to the annual reports for NatWest, HSBC, and Barclays – due in the final weeks of February – to see how the scrapped bonus cap will have fed through to their chief executives’ pay packets after last year’s policy changes.
Lower ranks have already started to benefit from looser bonus rules, with top bankers at Barclays and HSBC receiving their biggest payouts in a decade.Payouts for their most expensive staff surged more than 50% to nearly €20m (£16.6m) in 2024, which marked the first year after the cap was lifted.One HSBC banker was paid between €19m-€20m in 2024, much higher than the £5.4m paid out to HSBC’s chief executive.
There was a similar jump at Barclays, with the lender having paid €17m-€18m to a single banker in 2024, higher than the £10.5m paid to boss CS Venkatakrishnan for 2024.
Zarah Sultana’s Your Party membership launch may be ‘criminal’ matter for police, ICO says
Zarah Sultana’s unauthorised launch of a Your Party membership portal may have been “serious criminal activity” and should be referred to the police, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has advised.Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project (PJP), which referred Your Party to the information watchdog last September over a potential data breach, has been advised by the ICO that it should consider “taking further action” regarding the matter, after deciding it was not a matter for them.An extraordinary split opened up between Corbyn and Sultana in September after an email was sent to 800,000 people on Your Party’s mailing list, urging them to become paying members for £55. Sultana revealed the new membership portal on X, urging supporters to “be a part of history”, and reassured her followers that the membership site was “safe and secure”, encouraging them to keep trying to sign up despite “issues due to such high traffic”.Later the same day, Corbyn issued an “urgent message” telling his followers on X to ignore the “unauthorised” site and said “legal advice is being taken”
Reform UK accused of betraying election pledges after council tax rises
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has been accused of betraying election promises to cut council tax after several councils it controls said they planned to increase rates close to the maximum allowed.They include Kent county council – the party’s flagship local authority and one viewed by it as the “shop window” for what a Reform-led government would look like – which has proposed an increase of 3.99%.Four other county councils controlled by the party – Derbyshire, North Northamptonshire, West Northamptonshire and Leicestershire – have also all proposed 5% council tax rises, the maximum permitted by law.Derbyshire county council earlier this week confirmed the rise after predicting a £38m gap in its budget, with overspends in children’s social care and adult social care
It is Labour’s party machine that is out of touch | Letters
To combat rightwing populists, Chris Powell calls for “a local action network, a permanent organising infrastructure … to listen, act and communicate – identifying local problems, launching campaigns to fix them and publicising every small win” (What is Keir Starmer doing to push back the populists? Not nearly enough. We have a plan to take them on, 1 January).An organisation that could fill this role already exists: it’s called the Labour party. And, under Jeremy Corbyn, it had a Community Organising Unit to do just what Powell now asks for.That he overlooks this starkly illustrates how “analysts” and “advisers” such as himself have contributed to the party’s slide to the brink of oblivion
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Lib Dems call on Reform MPs to donate income from X to charity amid Grok row
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Home Office tells Gaza academic his bid to bring family to UK not urgent
A Palestinian academic has failed in his latest attempt to be reunited with his family in the UK after the Home Office concluded their case was not urgent and it was more appropriate for his two children to remain with their mother in a tent in Gaza.Bassem Abudagga was also told in a letter from Home Office officials that no reason had been found that was “sufficiently compelling” to defer a requirement that his wife attend a visa application centre (VAC) in Gaza so she could provide fingerprints to satisfy the conditions for evacuation.No such facility remains in Gaza as a result of Israeli bombardments, which have continued despite the fragile ceasefire – a fact that Abudagga says the Home Office is well aware of.Abudagga last saw his wife, Marim, son Karim, six, and daughter Talya, 10, four weeks before the October 7 attack in 2023 when he returned for a visit to Gaza.He had won a scholarship to study for a PhD at York St John University in 2022 and is regarded by his tutors as a model student
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