MPs blast Lloyds

LLOYDS boss Antonio Horta- Osorio faces questions from senior MPs over his pension arrangements amid an outcry at lucrative retirement deals.

He sparked outrage after taking a £154,000 cut to his annual pension contributions to try to head off criticism, then offset this with a £175,000 increase in other elements of his pay.

MPs Frank Field and Rachel Reeves, who respectively chair the pensions and business select committees in Parliament, have now written to Lloyds asking for an explanation.

If it fails to give an adequate answer, Horta-Osorio could be hauled into the House of Commons.

It came as Lloyds set aside another £100m to refund victims of PPI misselling, taking its total bill for the scandal to almost £20bn. After accounting for financial hits, the bank made a £1.6bn profit in the first three months of 2019 – the same as a year earlier.